Satyam board to review audited results on Sept 29

NEW DELHI, INDIA: Shares in Indian IT services firm Mahindra Satyam rose more than seven percent on Tuesday, as investors looked forward to their first peek into the audited financial results at the firm that was hit by India's biggest corporate scandal nearly two years ago.

Satyam shocked investors in January 2009 when the firm's chairman Ramalinga Raju said its profits had been overstated and assets falsified in a fraud allegedly worth over $1.5 billion.

The company on Tuesday said its board will review its audited financial results for fiscal years 2009 and 2010 on Sept 29, taking it closer to a merger with parent Tech Mahindra.

Tech Mahindra, which bought Satyam in April 2009 and is operating it as an independent company, has said it can only merge the firm into the parent after the restated results for fiscal years 2009 and 2010 are announced.

Shares in the company, earlier known as Satyam Computer Services, were up over five percent at 0554 GMT after rising as much as 7.5 percent to 98.40 rupees in a volatile Mumbai market. It was the third most heavily traded stock in the broader market.

"I think expectations are building up for results. The performance of the company should be better than what it was under Raju's (Ramalinga Raju) regime," said K. K. Mital, head of portfolio management services at Globe Capital in New Delhi. Mital holds the stock for his clients and is waiting for a further call after the company unveils the results. Satyam's auditor PricewaterhouseCoopers had said all Satyam audit reports from 2000 through 2008 should no longer be relied upon.