By IANS,
Mumbai : The following is the timeline of events surrounding Satyam Computer Services since its founder B. Ramalinga Raju made an abortive bid to make the company acquire two family enterprises, raising questions on corporate governance, followed by his admission to perpetrating India’s biggest corporate fraud:
Dec 16, 2008 – Satyam announces plan to buy two realty firms part-owned by its founders for $1.6 billion, but does a U-turn after negative investor fallout
Dec 18 – Satyam board plans to meet Dec 29 to consider a share buyback to restore confidence
Dec 23 – Satyam barred from business with the World Bank for eight years for providing bank staff with “improper benefits”
Dec 26 – Mangalam Srinivasan, an independent director, resigns
Dec 29 – Three more directors quit
Jan 7, 2009 – Raju resigns saying the company’s profits had been inflated
Jan 8 – Chief financial officer (CFO) Vadlamani Srinivas resigns
Jan 9 – Andhra Pradesh police arrest Raju and his brother and former company managing director B. Rama Raju on charges of cheating and forgery
Jan 10 – Finance head Srinivas arrested
Jan 11 – The central government reconstitutes Satyam board
Jan 14 – Deloitte, KPMG named new joint auditors for Satyam
Jan 14 – Satyam’s former auditor, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), says its opinion on the IT firm’s financials may be rendered “inaccurate and unreliable”
Jan 19 – The government orders probe into possible “nexus” between the fraud-hit Satyam and Raju’s two family-run firms Maytas Properties and Maytas Infrastructure
Jan 21 – Ramalinga Raju confesses diverting Satyam funds to the Maytas firms
Jan 23 – The Raju brothers, Srinivas sent to judicial custody till Jan 31
Jan 23 – Court rejects SEBI plea to record statements of Raju brothers
Jan 24 – Former Satyam auditor PWC’s S. Gopalakrishnan and Srinivas Talluri arrested
Jan 27 – The board appoints Goldman Sachs and Avendus, an Indian investment bank, to identify strategic investors
Jan 31 – A Hyderabad court extends judicial custody of all accused to Feb 7
Feb 3 – The Supreme Court allows SEBI to grill the Rajus
Feb 5 – Satyam gets Rs.600 crore ($130 million) from banks to meet working capital requirements. A.S. Murty appointed new CEO
Feb 6 – Former Nasscom chairman Kiran Karnik appointed Satyam chairman
Feb 7 – Court extends the judicial custody of Ramalinga Raju and four other accused to Feb 21
Feb 10 – Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy writes to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, seeking a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the fraud
Feb 13 – SEBI relaxes takeover norms for Satyam, giving their reconstituted boards the power to lower the target price for open offers
Feb 14 – The Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) joins probe
Feb 16 – The central government hands over investigations to the CBI
Feb 21 – The government-appointed board, meeting for the seventh time, decides to invite strategic investors
March 6 – Satyam gets permission from SEBI to sell 51 percent majority stake
March 9 – The court allows CBI to take custody of Raju brothers, Srinivas and sacked PWC auditors Gopalakrishnan and Talluri Srinivas
March 13 – L&T, Tech Mahindra, Spice Group and US outsourcer iGate Corp say they have registered as potential bidders
March 13 – The company appoints former chief justice S.P. Bharucha to oversee the bidding, selection process
March 20 – The board receives bids. iGate Corp says it will not bid
March 27 – Spice Group says it will not proceed as it has not got the desired level of transparency
April 7 – CBI files a 2,315 page chargesheet against the Raju brothers and seven other accused
April 13 – Tech Mahindra selected as strategic investor