Satyam shortlists L&T, Spice for stake sale as CBI alleges Rs9,600 crore fraud

23 March 2009

Engineering and construction major Larsen an Toubro (L&T) and the telecom gear maker Spice Corporation are among the seven players shortlisted for Satyam bidding, even as the CBI probing into the the accounting fraud at the IT major said it has enough reason to believe that the scam involves a much bigger amount - close to Rs10,000 crore - against the 7,000 crore that the IT company's founder Ramalinga Raju owned up.

The list of possible bidders shortlisted for sale of a 51 per cent stake in the fraud-hit IT firm also includes three private equity funds, sources said.

Earlier,  iGate, the US-based IT company that has opted out of the bidding process to acquire majority stake in Satyam Computer Services, had said that it took the decision keeping in mind the ''totality of concerns''.

iGate itself did not attribute any reasons for its withdrawal from the bidding process. ''There was no one particular reason, it is the totality of concerns like sliding revenues, unknown margins and large liabilities that made us pull out of the race,'' Phaneesh Murthy, president and chief executive of iGate said.

Satyam, which has been looking for a buyer to help revive it after its founder B Ramalinga Raju revealed in January that he overstated the company's profits over several years, is likely to send letters to shortlisted bidders soon.

Reports quoting CBI sources said on Monday that the agency has retrieved over 7,000 fake invoices and forged documents showing fixed deposits and bank balances and their evaluation shows that the size of the scam is over Rs 9,600 crore.