Satyam customers told: Batten down the hatches

Speaking from Satyam's headquarters in Hyderabad today, senior Indian banker and new Satyam board member Deepak Parekh said that on paper the company has enough money coming in to cover its debts but admitted that at the moment "nobody knows these numbers are correct".

Parekh said in the coming days the board will appoint accountants to verify the figures and go back over the firm's books for the past two or three years.

"We have triple A clients and can request them to pay early rather than waiting 60 days.

"The company has a large amount of receivables due and the debt due is low so there is adequate liquidity but we need to get these figures verified."

Parekh added that the company may also ask for more time to state its third quarter results.

The company's shares jumped to end the day more than 40 per cent up at 34.40 rupees (47 pence).

Parekh and two other senior figures were appointed to Satyam's board by the Indian government after it sacked the previous board on Friday.

There has also been much speculation about whether Satyam could be taken over or merge with another organisation, such as one of the other large Indian outsourcers.

But the CFO of one of the largest Indian outsourcers Wipro, Manish Dugar, played down suggestions that it could be among the companies looking to take over Satyam.

He said that the two companies were so similar that any deal would be hampered by a doubling up of departments across the new organisation.

Dugar told silicon.com: "If you look at the business of Satyam and Wipro we are more or less comparable in service, the size, the kind of work that we do, customer base, etc.

"It is complementary but I don't know how synergistic it would be, because if we are out there doing something where they are then one plus one becomes 11."