The body of a billionaire coffee tycoon, who was last seen walking across a bridge in India, was believed to have been discovered by a fisherman near a river on the outskirts of Mangalore, India, a report said Tuesday.
The remains of VG Siddhartha, the owner of India’s largest coffee chain, Cafe Coffee Day, was discovered about 36 hours after he disappeared after walking away from his driver, according to the BBC.
The body is being taken to a hospital for an official identification.
Siddhartha’s company, Coffee Day Enterprises Ltd., held an emergency board meeting Monday to discuss his absence and released a letter reportedly from the mogul.
In the letter, he said he was in debt and had “failed to create the right profitable business model despite my best efforts.”
The company appealed for “the support and strength of all our stakeholders.”
The 60-year-old entrepreneur left his home in Bangalore on Monday and asked his driver to go to Mangaluru, officials said.
He instructed his driver to stop on a bridge on the Nethravathi River, where he got out while talking on his phone.
The chauffeur alerted police when Siddhartha didn’t return, and divers were deployed to search the river for him.
Siddhartha started his beverage empire in 1996 and was estimated to be worth $1.2 billion in 2015, Forbes reported.
At the time, he owned more than 1,640 cafes, most of which were in India, and was known to take walks on his coffee plantations to relax.