"I AM VERY SORRY TO LET DOWN ALL ... BUT TODAY I GAVE UP," CAFE COFFEE DAY FOUNDER WRITES LETTER, GOES MISSING!

Founder of Cafe Coffee Day (CCD) Siddhartha went missing near Ullal bridge on Nethravathi River on Monday evening. CCD is India's largest coffee chain and he also owns Asia's single-largest coffee estate.

According to his driver, the 60-year-old business tycoon was on phone with someone when he got off the car near the bridge. But since he did not return even after one hour, his panicked driver alerted his family who informed police.

Police have launched a massive search involving local fishermen to search for him. Friends and family have gathered at former Karnataka CM SM Krishna's residence who is his father in law. He has 2 sons with Malvika.

Apart from CCD, he also runs 7-star resort Serai and Cicada. He sold his stakes in Mindtree for about Rs 3,000 crore. He was talking with Coca-Cola to sell CCD. CCD as of March 2019 has 1752 cafes and employs over 30,000 people.

CNN-News18 has accessed a letter, which was sent by Siddhartha to the Board of Directors and his Coffee Day family before he went missing where he said he had “failed to create the right profitable business model despite my best efforts." He said that “I would like to say I gave it my all. I am very sorry to let down all the people that put their trust in me. 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.”