Change in Satyam's management likely as 3 directors quit

30 December 2008

Three independent directors resigned from the Satyam board yesterday, in addition to the IT company's oldest director, Mangalam Srinivasan, who had resigned on Christmas Day taking moral responsibility for the ill-fated Satyam-Maytas deal (See: Shareholder revolt forces Satyam to dump Maytas bid)

Satyam said three more independent directors, Krishna Palepu, Vinod Dham and Mendu Rammohan Rao, had quit. Palepu and Dham's resignations were effective Sunday, while Rao's came into effect from Monday.

Effectively, the nine-member board  has now been reduced to five - three whole-time directors that includes chairman B Ramalinga Raju,  managing director B Rama Raju and company president Ram Mynampati.

The remaining two independent directors are former IIT director V S Raju and former union cabinet secretary T R Prasad, who may also leave.

The company had announced that the meeting of its board of directors due to have been held yesterday has now been rescheduled to 10 January, 2009,  to allow the board to consider additional options (See: Satyam promoters ousted?)

The board had been expected to consider a share buyback at the Monday meeting, but news last week that the outsourcer had been barred from doing business with the World Bank added to its woes (See: Satyam barred from World Bank work for 8 years)