Harvard Business School (HBS) got its first black eye from Enron when an alumnus about which HBS had written gushing cases, Jeff Skilling, ended up causing one of America's biggest corporate frauds. And now Enron and HBS are joined again with the scandal at Satyam Computer Services (NYSE: SAY) -- whose stock finally opened yesterday on the NYSE and plunged 86% -- which has been dubbed India's Enron.

Satyam's founder and chairman Byrraju Ramalinga Raju is a graduate of HBS's executive education program. And HBS accounting professor Krishna G. Palepu was on Satyam's board of directors. But both of these gentlemen are gone now. And while I would have thought that Palepu would serve on Satyam's audit committee -- he opted out of that rule because of a consulting contract he had with Satyam which he felt would have compromised him had he served on the audit committee.

Palepu said he didn't learn about the fraud until after he had resigned from the company. So we are left with many questions: Why did Palepu resign if it wasn't because of the fraud? As an accounting professor, why didn't he detect problems with its books? (It would have been simple to compare Satyam's stated cash position with the content of its bank accounts). Was Palepu window dressing on Satyam's board? Did he just fly to India for the board meetings and accept his compensation or did he ask probing questions and try to understand Satyam's finances and strategy?

Continue reading India's Enron gives Harvard Business School another black eye

India's Enron gives Harvard Business School another black eye originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 14 Jan 2009 13:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Satyam Computer Services (NYSE: SAY) has not opened for trading today but it was down 91% in "pre-market." When you hear why, you'll realize that Satyam could be India's version of Enron. There were glimmers of trouble a few weeks ago when Satyam's chairman, Ramalinga Raju, unilaterally decided to buy his son's construction companies -- Maytas Properties Ltd. and Maytas Infra Ltd -- but when the stock collapsed after the announcement, he pulled back within 12 hours.

While that was bad enough, the biggest shocker came today when Raju resigned after announcing that he had faked Satyam's numbers for several years. It turns out that the reason he wanted to buy those construction companies was to plug the $1.03 billion gap between the falsely accounted for and real cash on Satyam's books.

Here's an irony: the word Satyam means "truth" in Sanskrit. And when the truth came out, Satyam got into a rapidly cascading wave of troubles. First, shareholders blocked his asset purchases, then the World Bank banned Satyam from bidding for orders for eight years, alleging that improper benefits were given to World Bank employees. Then four directors quit, and finally, Raju quit the company and announced his fraud.

Continue reading Satyam: 'India's Enron'

Satyam: 'India's Enron' originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 07 Jan 2009 18:47:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.