A-Satyam....Raju's Vanishing Cash ka Jaadu!

The Satyam Saga : Flash Back and Now!!
If I say I am going to give you the complete Satyam saga, give you a blow- by- blow account of what Ramalinga Raju did, you better don't believe me!

The image here is Raju playing Holi @ Satyam, Perhaps, he was preparing for "Hands Up" for a long time before anyone could catch him "red-handed" !

Satyam stock plunges..Andhra Cm says he's not responsible for Raju's Rise..Satyam's 6.55 acre land being handed over to Indian Navy..

This is not what I am going to expound on- This is something that's already in the news. After all, it is the most "googled" thing today, greater than even Obama!
Just to bring forward a few interesting facts i got :

1. Satyam's website has some interesting write up on compliance : "Compliance isn’t just about reporting, or data management, or training, or having the right technologies; it’s all of these together. The overarching intent of all of these compliance programs is to help enterprises address four key areas: information integrity, process integrity, controlled access to information, and secure information retention" Hehe... Information integrity.. secure information retention..hehe, to think of all the institutional investors close to satyam and the top management who sold shares days before Raju's infamous acceptance of fraud. By the way, that image is from Satyam website : it says : SATYAM'S EXECUTION : Ordinary people doing extraordinary Things! ..ahem..well..
2. Five Years back, at the time of US elections, Ramalinga Raju was thought to be the most feared man, greater than Osama! Today, again, Raju is feared to unveil more dirty news of untruth! For the uninitiated, let me give you a gist : Satyam reported a 28% jump in Q2 profit in 2004."It's not that they're doing anything better than competitors like [Montreal-based CGI Group Inc.]," said Forrester Research analyst John McCarthy. "They're just doing it with a different cost structure." For your information, John McCarthy is a VP at Forrester. perhaps, McCarthy was referring to false cost structure and inflated profits! Check this out http://www.indiadaily.com/editorial/11-01k-04.asp
   
3. Today, the same McCarthy states that any investor would be nervous about how much Satyam's books have been fiddled with! Well, the period when Satyam was praised for its cost structure was also included in its "fraudulent era". Did McCarthy not really examine satyam's books thoroughly before lauding its cost structure? Agreed, cooked books that even the auditor PwC "could not" trace are difficult for an analyst to identify. But these very people claim to be the best in business, so whom do we look upto now? Even before the Raju admittance, here came a Forrester research view : http://www.forrester.com/Research/Document/Excerpt/0,7211,48121,00.html
   
4. To think of it, Satyam is the very company that received the pretigious Frost & Sullivan Excellence in Leadership Award for 2008. People appreciated Satyam's Corporate Social Governance at the time. The defamed company's CSR has gone for a toss.

Well.. Let me add my disclaimer, I have no personal stake whatsoever in Satyam or any of its associated companies [read Maytas]. Which is why, perhaps, my tone is a bit mellowed down..
More on Satyam and the IT industry..soon to come!!!

Apple's Cook gets Jobs' Job

Jobs is away from Job @ Apple again..This time for a tad bit longer...and worries loom large over whether his hiatus will mark his return to business at all.
His cancerous tumour has been giving him trouble for quite some time now, only now he thinks it has become more complex. Speculation is rife that this time around, he may not return to his top job as CEO. In the interim, COO Tim Cook, the master of Apple's operational minutiae will step into Jobs shoes. What does this mean for pioneer company?
Sure, Jobs was kicked out of his job early in his career [he was just 30, 10 years after he jointly founded Apple]. But the company survived. Jobs with his famous "Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish" attitude battled this phase, and came to the rescue via the NeXt acquisition to the Apple Inc Board and lead the i Mac, i Pod revolution. as many people put it, if Apple's design is taken care of by Jonathan Ive, the vision that drive Apple and propels it ahead is that of Mr. Jobs.

Check out this link that has one if is famous speeches made at Stanford University
http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html

Post Mortem report for the economy : by the G-30

The financial turmoil began with the collapse of Bear Stearns, bolstered by the Lehman Fall and the humbling of AIG and Merrill Lynch. What next? The panel of economic doctors are here to tell the world- how these giants died, what was the cause of the disease, and how do you prevent the next gen from being infected!

Yes, the G-30 team, which includes Paul Volcker, former Fed chairman and economic adviser to the president elect Barrack Obama, Euro Central Bank Chief Jean-Claude Trichet, Larry Summers..and so on. Surprising why all the great names speak up only after a crisis, why not hen they were at the helm of things or when their "opinions" could have really averted disasters.

Nonetheless, let me sum up the G-30 report to fix the financial markets in brief for you.

• Banks to have stricter capital requirements
• Banks to be under Central Bank's glare for proprietary trading activities
• Conditions similar to the Glass Steagall Act that was repealed in 1999
• Hedge Funds may have to reports to a regulator, may be subject to stringent capital and liquidity requirements
• OTC Derivative contracts may be subject to proper regulation

All In all, they have woken up to a new reality. Or may i say they are presenting to the world a probable new reality in the wake of dismal financial performance by many industries. This looks good, and would probably hold good, till the next big fall and another post mortem report holds out that all that was valid till date was grossly inaccurate and always demanded change.