Better.com CEO Vishal Garg says he is ‘personally liable’ for $750M SoftBank loan

Better.com CEO Vishal Garg has acknowledged to employees that he “personally guaranteed” the $750 million cash infusion provided to the online mortgage lender last November in an email seen by TechCrunch.

Let’s start at the beginning. Last May, Better.com announced that it was going public via a SPAC that would value the company at nearly $7 billion. Then on November 30, the company announced that blank-check company Aurora Acquisition Corp. and SoftBank decided to amend the terms of their financing agreement to provide Better with half of the $1.5 billion they committed immediately instead of waiting until the deal closes.

But what wasn’t revealed at that time, as Fortune reported last week, was that when SoftBank ponied up that $750 million in November, it was Garg – not the company as a whole – who assumed responsibility for compensating the Japanese investment conglomerate for any losses.

The Better Founder and CEO, in his personal capacity, has agreed to enter into a side letter with SoftBank, pursuant to which he may be liable for realized losses or receive payments in certain circumstances from SoftBank in connection with the Post-Closing Convertible Notes, which could divert the resources and attention of the Better Founder and CEO from our business and have a negative impact on his personal financial situation.

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