Raju confesses: Why and how of the Satyam con

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Source: www.ibnlive.com

The arrested Satyam top brass claim PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), the company auditors, never warned Satyam of discrepancies in accounts over the last seven years.

In a confession letter - to which Network 18 has exclusive access - ex-Satyam Chairman Ramalinga Raju admits to the fraud and justifies his position. Following are the pointers of the letter:

• Because of the present global financial situation, disparity shown in the balance sheet became difficult to cover up.
• Things have gone out of control. Since I have been instrumental in starting the company, I wish it to be a leading company and could not bear the thought of it coming down. That is the reason I have money to save the situation.
• Since about seven years, we wanted to show more income in the account to avoid others from involving in company affairs and any other possible hostile takeover situation, and hence, manipulated the balance sheet to attract more business and show unavailable amount as available cash in hand.
• This process continued for the last seven years and margin amount shown got increased much more year after year.