Satyam still a valued company: Minister

The government said on Monday Satyam Computer Services, which is passing through a period of crisis, is a valued company and all efforts are on to ensure that its operations remain undisturbed.

"Satyam has a value; it has intellectual property rights; it has trained manpower and world's good clients...," corporate affairs minister Prem Chand Gupta told PTI when asked about the prospects of the IT major in the backdrop of ongoing investigations against its founder and former chairman B Ramalinga Raju, senior management and group companies.

The minister further said running the operations of the company and inquiry against people involved in the accounting fraud are two different things and should be viewed separately separately.

The government, he said, has already appointed a six-member board of eminent persons to run the IT company and ensure continuity in its operations.

On the other hand, he said, the investigating agencies like Serious Fraud Investigation Office, Crime Branch-Criminal Investigation Department, Securities and Exchange Board of India and Registrar of Companies are looking into the financial fraud committed by the Satyam founder Raju and his associates.

The IT company, Gupta said, does not have major liabilities, as per the preliminary findings and the information received so far by the government.

Making a case for protecting the operations of the company, he said, "if the operations of Satyam are disturbed, many stakeholders would be at a major loss."

In order to manage Satyam Computer Services following disclosure of financial fraud by its founder chairman Raju, the government disbanded the board of the IT major replacing it with a new board comprising HDFC chairman Deepak Parekh, Nasscom past president Kiran Karnik, past presiding officer of Securities and Appellate Tribunal C Achutan.

Later, the government appointed six more members on the board which include ICAI past president T Manoharan, insurance sector expert S Balakrishna Mainak and CII chief mentor Tarun Das.

The new board of Satyam met twice and appointed global accountancy firms KPMG and Deloitte to re-state the accounts of the IT company.

The company presently has receivables of about Rs 1,700 crore (Rs 17 billion), corporate affairs minister Gupta said, adding that the first information about Satyam is encouraging as the company's liabilities are not much.

"As per the information, it seems the liabilities of the company are not much," he said.

However, he added, prima facie it appears that there has been 'diversion' of funds from scam-tainted Satyam where the facts and figures in the balance sheet are not based on correct information.

The real financial position of Satyam is likely to become clear once the accounts of the company are re-stated by the new auditors.