Thursday, December 18, 2008

 

Satyam and its aborted plan

If you have been reading the financial papers for the past 2 days, you would have realized that suddenly something seemed to be happening at Satyam, and if you were more interested, you would have read that suddenly Satyam seemed to be in the eye of a storm regarding issues of corporate governance. It all started when Satyam announced that it was planning on spending $ 1.3 billion on diversification, and that too, this amount would have been spent on buying Maytas, a company in which the promoters of Satyam hold a 35% stake. This was not a deal that was approved by shareholders, and apparently not even by the board.
The shareholding of the promoters in Satyam is only 8%, with institutions holding a majority, and this action by the promoters saw an incredible reaction on the stock exchange. Immediately after this move, there was a reaction from shareholders, with the ADR on the US market falling by 52%. The next day, financial newspapers unanimously denounced this move as a gross violation of all norms of corporate governance, and in moves that would have scared the promoters, institutions threatened to review whether there is a trust in the management of the company.
Now, this proposed move has been withdrawn, but has left a mark on the management of the company that is difficult to get away; it will take time before the trust quotient can be restored:

Even as Satyam's deal to buy Maytas had to be hastily annulled in the wee hours of Wednesday morning as the company lost 52% on its ADR listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), a credibility crisis has begun to grip India's fouth largest IT company. "How can we trust the management of this company and its board of directors after it tried to enter into a deal that prime facie would benefit only the promoters who just own 8% of Satyam ? We have to examine whether the management needs to be changed," cried analysts in a reflection of the deep anguish caused by the now stymied move.
"58% of Satyam is owned by FIIs and they had no inkling that such a deal was in the works. There were questions about the future of Satyam after acquiring these companies when it doesn't have any experience in these businesses. It makes more sense to deploy your funds in related businesses or pay your investors," said Sourav Mahajan, analyst with Karvy.


The company is doing fire-fighting, but this is not the US. In the US by now, with a company promoters holding 8% and with such a move, there would have a far more critical reaction. Here, institutions typically do not show much emotion even when they hold a majority of the stake in the company; in fact, the public and private displays of reaction is unprecedented. This reaction is obviously not what Satyam was expecting.
However, one expects that with the share buyback announced after this as an attempt to mollify shareholders, there may not be much beyond what has been stated; the management of Satyam (and other companies) would be a bit wiser about what they can do or cannot do. What remains true in this case is that the board of the company proved ineffectual, and needs to be looked afresh.

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Sunday, December 14, 2008

 

Things will take time to look up

The recession in the world economy will take time to look up. The US is right now a year into recession, with unemployment rates reaching scary rates, not seen for many many years. The Big 3 automakers are in real trouble right now, fighting for getting funding from the US Government, and right now, that funding looks in trouble since the US Congress has refused to grant such a funding. Companies have been firing people left right and center, forcing much more instability into the entire economy.
The market in India has also been severely impacted, with growth in many industries and sectors very badly impacted - the realty market is down, rentals are down, auto industries are down, consumer durables are impacted, and so on.
The market remains depressed, and even the announcement of a reduction in petrol and diesel prices, along with a Government push to go against its fiscal responsibility norms and push more money into trying to pump up the economy and growth in the infrastructural area has not had much of an effect to the market. Even when the market goes up to some extent, there is always the worry about how transient this growth is, and there is always an expectation that the market would again fall down. Right now, the sentiment remains negative, and people who have invested money in the recent past have also lost market, making people apprehensive about investing more money in the market.
Typically, as per all market literature and investment books, this would be a good time to invest in fundamentally good companies, but the upside will take time to achieve (maybe upto an year).

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