THE BEST WAY TO ROB A BANK IS TO OWN ONE [ THE ANATOMY OF GREED ]

            Hardly a month before, the Satyam computer services chairman, the IT poster boy of Andhra Pradesh, RamalingaRaju has confessed that he has routed all the corporate governance norms and conducted the greatest Indian forgery of about Rs.7000 crores. Account balance fraud, inflated profits, non existent cash reserves & interests and understate liabilities took the toll to this huge amount. He is yet to be probed by SEBI on the cases of insider trading, unfair trade practices and frauds. But apart from this there are other aspects that prove that the chairman left no stones unturned.

            First, the promoters of this company who had the stake of about 25%, gradually decreased their stake to 5% over a period of 7 years. This proves that, the promoters already knew that the empire was falling, and they were conscious of securing their money, before its complete fall. The promoters sold over 4.5 crores of shares over a period of 7 years.

            Second, the promoters of this company had siphoned huge amount of satyam funds to the 2 companies namely, Maytas properties and Maytas infrastructure which were run by none other than the 2 sons of Ramalinga Raju.

            Third, in the era of post liberalization, the auditors who were to ensure that the accounts were monitored to the  best industry standards have miserably failed. Kudos to Raju, who has paid much more to the auditors of PriceWaterHouse, than they deserved.

            Fourth, though not confirmed, there are allegations that there were only 40,000 employees as against 53,000 employees. So, the salary money of the fake employees, of the tune of Rs.20 crores per month have found its way to the real estate ventures of RamalingaRaju. This explains how Raju managed to acquire 6800 acres of land when the government has imposed the cap of agricultural land per person [54 acres in case of dry agricultural land or 25 acres in case of wet agricultural land or 1000 square metres in cities].

            Fifth, there are even allegations that Raju would have committed money laundering by the way of funds from tax haven like Mauritius.

            Sixth, he used his influence and his political clout to make Hyderabad Metro Rail Corporation fall in the hands of Maytas Infrastructure run by his son.

            Raju has brilliantly proved that the best way to rob a bank is to own a bank. He constructed an empire from the scraps. He made the investors to pay for the empire. And finally, he robbed the empire.