The Satyam board tomorrow will chart out a long-term roadmap for the company in the next 10 days, said Chairman of the board Kiran Karnik. The board will also take a call on a potential suitor for the company besides planning to get a bank loan in the next few days.
"Our priorities remain the same and that is to get stability into the company and solve the financial issues. Now the next phase is to plan for the medium and long-term. This is something we will be defining in the next 10 days," said Karnik.
While sale of the company is imminent, Karnik ruled out the possibility of part-sale of Satyam business. "The board thinks that Satyam should be looked as a whole entity. One of the reasons for this is that, there can be argument that some of the parts might get more interest. The good parts will be cherry picked while some might be left out. In case that happens there might be a danger of people losing their jobs. Besides companies are looking at firms holistically," he added.
Some of the bidders that have sought interest in the company are L&T (which has a 12 per cent stake in the company), Aegis—the BPO arm of Essar group, the Hinduja Group, Tech Mahindra and B K Modi.
He declined to comment on whether the board will decide on the open offer issue at tomorrow's board meeting.
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On customers leaving Satyam and preferring other IT firms, Karnik said: "Obviously there are concerns on the part of the customers. Some of the customers have moved away. I have been talking to several customers and they have all appreciated and agreed that the Satyam as a company is strong and its employees are highly talented."
Meanwhile, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy said the state's role is limited when compared with the role of the Union Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO), Reserve Bank of India and the Income-Tax department.
"There are thousands of companies in the state. Is it the state government's responsibility to check their accounts?" he asked the legislative assembly members today, adding: "As the Satyam fraud is happening for the past eight years as per the management's own confession, the central government organisations have failed somewhere to detect the fraud. There seems to be a sort of a system failure."
Incidentally, the SFIO is yet to interrogate the accused. Its plea seeking court's permission to interrogate them has been posted for February 13.
In a related development, the slanging match between the ruling Congress and the opposition continued for the third straight day in the Andhra assembly with both the leaders accusing each other of money laundering.
The penultimate day began with the opposition demanding clarifications on various points it had raised with the government on Tuesday. Carrying the Satyam debate forward, Telugu Desam President and opposition leader N Chandrababu Naidu demanded an inquiry by a sitting judge into all the allegations pertaining to the Satyam fraud case and the 14 companies promoted by the family members of Chief Minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy.
The opposition parties alleged that funds from abroad were pumped into Jagati Publications (Sakshi daily) belonging to chief minister's son Jaganmohan Reddy through the Sandur Power Project in Bangalore, also promoted by him. Later, 2 I, a Mauritius-based company, invested into the power project and also in Protected Cell Company, which too is promoted by Jaganmohan Reddy. This channelled the money to Sakshi Telugu daily and to-be launched Sakshi channel, Naidu said.
Replying to the allegations, Rajasekhara Reddy said Sandur was started by his son in 1999 with an investment of Rs 150 crore and later Mauritius company 2 I bought a stake in it. These activities do not come under money laundering, he said, charging T Devender Goud, who was home minister during the TDP regime, with selling stocks of Matrix Laboratories at a higher price. The chief minister also pointed out that Ramoji Rao, industrialist and publisher of Eenadu Telugu daily, sold his shares in the company valued at Rs 100 for Rs 5.28 lakh each (on a pro rata basis).
The opposition members were suspended from the House and marshals were called in to evict them.