Satyam employees eagerly await a new CEO

The Satyam corporate headquarters is a buzz of conflicting activity. On Thursday, even as the company’s newly-appointed accountants — KPMG and Deloitte — started work on restating the company’s accounts, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India said KPMG could not do the sums as it was not registered with the institute.

KPMG said it didn’t need to be registered to do the work it had been assigned. At another level the top management of the company was in partial disarray. While one lot has been working hard to save what remains of the company and reassure customers, another lot of 40 executives — from the finance department — has been put in limbo as some of them are being questioned for the fraud.

Satyam’s corporate headquarters in Hyderabad wore a busy look on Thursday. The nameplates from most of the doors are missing, but the rarified offices, accessibly till recently only to the topmost leadership, was crawling with auditors, and more interestingly, anxious customers. “We woefully need a CEO,” said a senior executive. 

If the company resembles a headless chicken thrashing around in its last throes of death, it is because most of the top leadership is running around the globe trying to convince customers that Satyam will survive. Satyam may not get out of the woods for months to come, but then Ramalinga Raju, while destroying its reputation, may have actually left behind the secret for its survival. A close look at the intricate structuring of Satyam — designed probably to keep the financial reins tightly in the hands of a few — may actually come to its rescue, said a company insider.