Ghotala.in

Day-long meeting of newly constituted Satyam board ended with a press conference where in the three board members, Deepak Parekh, Kiran Karnik and C Achuthan said that the immediate priority was to continue services.

The board members said that they enjoy immunity as by virtue of being govt employed directors. They said that the new auditors could take charge as soon as next 48 hours. “The new independent accountants will verify the veracity of the statements. The receivables are large and we will not need funds. There is need to ascertain if money has been squandered. There are ways to get funds back. We can’t rely on Ramalinga Raju’s statements alone on liquidity,” they said.

Ram Maynampati is not a director and is not on the board today, but he continues as an employee. As on Price Waterhouse, the board members said that the shareholders will take a decision at the next meeting.

On the status of CEO, the members said, “We need to appoint a CEO and CFO. We do not have any candidates in mind. We need a senior CEO at this juncture. We will meet frequently and we will request clients to pay earlier to ensure liquidity. It is too early to say if we have enough liquidity.”

Board member Kiran Karnik said that Indian IT companies have strong governance standards, and Satyam is an exception.  Mr Parekh added that there was no conflict of interest of directors with other directorships and the board had no plans to talk to Rajus at this stage.

The members said that the investigations are still on and chairman’s statement is not enough material evidence to lodge complaint. They also plan to seek an extension for announcing Q3 results.

On retaining customers, the members said, “there is now some perception of stability. We can allay customers’ concerns. Let’s not forget that the co has talent and customers are satisfied. If we can restore confidence in just the structure of the company, it will be enough. If we can give them a reasonable degree of confidence, they will hesitate to move mission critical applications out.”

In the last 24 hours two international customers have said the quality and accuracy of service of Satyam’s was much better than others. You cannot forget that Satyam has been among the top 4 IT cos. in India. The auditors will have to go back for three-four years with the financial statements, Mr Parekh said, adding, “We would want a CEO to take the company to greater heights.”

The board said that the option of merger is always open and the banks should be more supportive towards Satyam employees in terms of loan repayments. ‘These are qualified and talented people and will find jobs. Banks must give them time to get jobs in case they are unemployed.

Source: IS / Via : MSN