Finally CBI to file Satyam charge sheet on April 9

CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation) will file April 9 its first charge sheet in the Rs.78 billion Satyam fraud, which surfaced in January shocking India Inc.

'We are going to file the first charge sheet April 9,' CBI director Ashwini Kumar told reporters here. Last month, the CBI accused Satyam founder B. Ramalinga Raju, his brother and another arrested official of 'not sharing everything' in connection with the multi-billion dollar fraud in the IT major. The probe agency wanted them to go through a lie-detector test.

The probe agency said if they were disappointed with the answers then they would make the Raju brothers undergo a Norco analysis. Ramalinga Raju had Jan 7 confessed to having cooked the company's account books and inflated profits over the past several years.

The company founder and his brother Rama Raju were arrested Jan 9. Former chief financial officer Vadlamani Srinivas was picked up the next day. Two former auditors from Price Waterhouse were detained later. And today corporate world giants like IBM, Wipro, Larsen & Tubro, Spice group are running for take over Satyam.

Satyam bidding : 8 short listed, IBM present.

Satyam Computer Services has short listed about eight bidders, counting IBM and private equity company Apax Partners, for buying the fraud-hit outsourcer, the Economic Times said.

Indian engineering multinational Larsen & Toubro, Tech Mahindra and Spice Group are among other selected bidders for a 51 percent stake, the newspaper said, citing unnamed sources.

U.S. based IBM has registered its interest through a law firm, it said. The short listed bidders will do their due diligence of Satyam over the next two days, it said, quoting a person familiar with the development. A spokeswoman for Satyam said the company would not make any comment on the bidding process.

Spice Group Chairman B.K. Modi told Reuters on Wednesday the company might withdraw from the race to buy Satyam due to a lack of desired transparency in the bidding process.

New York-listed Satyam has been struggling since founder and Chairman Ramalinga Raju shocked investors in January, saying profits had been overstated for years and assets falsified in India's biggest corporate scandal. Raju is being held in jail.

The Satyam board is looking for a buyer to help restore the confidence of its more than 600 clients and about 50,000-strong staff, but there are concerns about the extent of the fraud, whether it is losing clients and its legal liabilities. The company's accounts are yet to be restated.

Is IBM interested in Satyam?

World’s giant IT organization IBM is understood to be the front-runner to acquire Satyam Computer Solutions, a company it named as one of its main competitors in a filing to the New York Stock Exchange.

The IT giant, said sources close to the developments, has begun discussions with Satyam's government-nominated board and expressed its desire to acquire a majority stake in the company. A team of investment bankers and lawyers from the US and Europe has been brought in to assess the size of the deal and the risks associated with it. The company is also understood to have conducted an initial due diligence on some of Satyam's major customers.

A week ago, Minister of Corporate Affairs P C Gupta said the open bids would not be restricted to Indian players. IBM was named one of the hostile bidders for Satyam by promoter Ramalinga Raju at the company's December 16 board meeting. Other prominent players in the race are Larsen & Toubro, which owns 12 per cent in Satyam, and the B K Modi- owned Spice group.

If IBM wins the race to acquire Satyam, it will become the largest IT services player in India, with combined employee strength of over 125,000 people.