Feb. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Satyam Computer Services Ltd., the Indian software provider at the center of the nation’s biggest corporate fraud inquiry, aims to start a process to sell a stake to a strategic investor this week, Chairman Kiran Karnik said.
“We are hoping this week it should all be set and sorted out,” Karnik said in a telephone interview today. The Hyderabad- based company would like to be “ready to invite expressions of interest” from bidders, as soon as the sale plan is approved by regulators, he said.
Satyam’s government-appointed board will seek regulatory approval this week for its plan to sell a stake to a strategic investor in an effort to secure the company’s viability. The software provider has lost three-fourths of its market value since former chairman Ramalinga Raju said Jan. 7 he’d falsified accounts and inflated assets by more than $1 billion and quit.
The stake sale plan was approved by India’s Company Law Board last week and Satyam may sell at least a 26 percent stake to the winner of an open bidding process.
The computer-services provider will share as much financial and customer information as is legally permissible with bidders, Karnik said. The company had so far lost three “important” clients including State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co.
“Each bidder will have to make his own judgment” on the extent of liabilities Satyam may face, he said.
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