Friday, January 09, 2009

Satyam fall out

There is the possible collapse of the firm and its impact on over 50,000 employees; then, the possible folding up of PricewaterhouseCoopers if anything is proved against them. The loss to shareholders of Satyam. There is the impact on brand India and the IT sector, the impact on capital flows into the country especially if any other scandal erupts. All this has been talked about. What else? Well, a few things:
  • The future of Hyderabad Metro: this deal was won by Maytas Infrastructure in the face of strong criticism from Delhi Metro chief E Sreedharan, who indicated it had all the makings of a land scam. The project is meant to be a feather in the CM's cap, so he's going to have some sleepless nights over this.
  • The Byrraju foundation: this is not your run-of-the-mill NGO. It's a huge thing involving 200 villages and covering one million people, according to some reports. The foundation's CEO recently sent out a letter that says that Raju has thus far contributed Rs 300 crore from his own funds to the foundation.
  • The 108 emergency project: Raju had signed contracts for PPPs with several state governments to provide emergency services. I heard these are running well. The state governments invest in ambulances and other hardware. Raju takes care of the operations including software, back office and control rooms.
Incidentally, Forbes.com has a nice backgrounder on the rise and fall of Raju.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sir,

I had a chat with a relative who is a CA regarding the accounting fiasco in Satyam. He told me that these kind of scams will happen as CA's are tremendous pressure to complete all processes by April 1 every year. The possible flaw with Pricewaterhouse was that they didn't independently verify the bank statements that Satyam issued (and were also probably forged). Would like to heare your views on this. Also could you please suggest a good book on basic accounting. As a non-financial person i want to take up accounting seriously.

Regards,
Shyam

akd said...

I am an engineer and I don't kno what goes behind all thses.
I only know that a lot of people is going to be affected directly and indirectly.

Anonymous said...

Byrraju Foundation and GramIT initiative will definitely miss Satyam's founder for his positive impact. Robin Hood comes to mind.