Founder of the famous Indian coffee chain Cafe Coffee Day (CCD), VG Siddhartha who has been untraceable since Monday evening was last spotted at the Netravati Bridge near Mangaluru. The Bengaluru-based businessman and son-in-law of former Karnataka chief minister SM Krishna had left Bengaluru with his driver with an intent to travel to Sakleshpur but made a diversion to Mangaluru, a police statement said.

A letter he submitted to his board of directors two days before he went missing was released by ANI on Tuesday.

In the letter VG Siddhartha apologised to his team for having "failed to create the right profitable business model despite (his) best efforts."

He further said, "I fought for a long time but today I gave up as I could not take any more pressure from one of the private equity partners forcing me to buy back shares, a transaction I had partially completed six months ago by borrowing a large sum of money from a friend. Tremendous pressure from other lenders lead to me succumbing to the situation."

He also took responsibility for the said "transactions." "My team, auditors and senior management are totally unaware of all my transactions. The law should hold me and only me accountable, as I have withheld this information from everybody including my family," he said.

The search to find him is still on. Shares of Coffee Day Enterprises consequently fell to a new low at Rs 153.40 apiece on NSE.