CCD’s Quiet Retreat

✍ By Sarthak Jain | 🌍 India | 📅 Wed Oct 22 2025

Lessons in Leadership and Leverage

After going missing on the evening of 29 July 2019, his body was found by three fishermen at the Hoige Bazaar beach, near the mouth of the river Nethravati on 31 July 2019. This is the story of revolutionary entrepreneur and founder of India’s biggest coffee empire, VG Siddhartha. The son-in-law of former Karnataka chief minister S M Krishna, was born in Karnataka’s Chikkamagaluru district in a family that had been in the business of coffee plantation for around 140 years. Siddhartha had a very strong background in the coffee industry being inherited from his ancestors since more than a century ago. He established his first business of a coffee trading company ABC in Karnataka 1993, with a ₹6 crore turnover. After that he moved on to setup his first café in Bangalore in 1996 which came to be known as Café Coffee Day. By 2018 Siddhartha had opened about 1700 cafes in all over India. His cafes attracted 40,000 to 50,000 visitors a week. The company had created an environment for the customers which not only provided high quality coffee but gave a relaxing experience for stress release and hanging out with friends. It’s positioning as a brand was brilliant and had developed a strong uphold in the market which was already been dominated by brands like Starbucks and Barista. At its peak in 2019, CCD operated 1,752 outlets across 243 Indian cities. But what everyone could not see was the financial strain that was getting accumulated over the company in spite of being profitable. CCD had incurred heavy investments and debts from investors for its global and regional expansion and this instead of turning out to be beneficial backfired upon the company itself. It’s necessary to understand that over raising of funds without monitoring the financials can be extremely lethal for any business. As of March 2019, Cafe Coffee Day (CCD) and its associated entities had accumulated a total debt of approximately ₹11,000 crore. The mounting pressure from investors and income tax officials led Siddhartha to take his own life. A note was left by him in which he mentioned his regret and incapability to create a profitable company despite his best efforts. Siddhartha took full responsibility for the financial issues and stated that his team, auditors, and senior management were unaware of his transactions. He asked for forgiveness and hoped that the businesses would continue to run under new management. From then her wife is trying to pay off the debts and has since made a great attempt in doing so. CCD’s story is a lesson for all newcomers as well as industrialists who are unaware of the fact that handling financials is as important as handling operations of a company.