Coffee Day Enterprises shares crack 20 pc after Chairman goes missing

New Delhi: Shares of Coffee Day Enterprises Ltd dropped 20 per cent on Tuesday after news surfaced that its Chairman and Managing Director V G Siddhartha has gone missing.

The scrip tumbled 20 per cent and hit its lower circuit limit as well as its 52-week low of Rs 154.05 on the BSE. At the NSE, shares cracked 20 per cent and fell to its 52-week low of Rs 153.40.

In a filing to the BSE on Tuesday morning, the company said "V G Siddhartha, Chairman and Managing Director of Coffee Day Enterprises Limited is not reachable since yesterday evening. We are taking the help of concerned authorities," Coffee Day Enterprises said in a regulatory filing.

"Company is professionally managed and led by competent leadership team, which will ensure continuity of business," the filing added.

Siddhartha, the son-in-law of former Karnataka chief minister S M Krishna, was headed for Sakaleshpur but on the way he had asked his driver to go towards Mangaluru, according to the police.

On reaching a bridge over the Netravati river in the Kotepura area in Dakshina Kannada district, he got down from the car and told his driver that he was going for a walk.

"He (Siddhartha) asked the driver to wait till his arrival. When he did not return even after two hours, the driver approached the police and lodged a missing complaint," deputy commissioner of Dakshina Kannada district Senthil Sasikant Senthil told PTI.

Meanwhile, the state government has already started search operations in the Netravati bridge area.