Satyam staff down (13,000 employees ) by a quarter

As many as 13,000 employees may have quit India’s graft-tainted outsourcing giant Satyam with some poached by clients and others leaving to work for rivals or other firms, a report said on Thursday. The workforce of Satyam, which is struggling for survival since its founder admitted to falsifying profits, stood at 40,000 by the end of March, down from 53,000 at the start of the year, India’s Mint business daily said. The report comes as Satyam’s government-appointed board looks for a buyer to take a 51-percent stake in the company to inject much-needed funds. At least one firm, US-based iGate has already withdrawn from the bidding, citing client and staff losses at Satyam Computer Services. There have been at least 78 recent instances in which Satyam employees have left along with clients who ended their relationship with the company, Mint quoted an unnamed Satyam project manager as saying. On Wednesday, Business Standard newspaper reported 250 to 300 Satyam workers were joining Bank of America to work on a Satyam project for Merrill Lynch which was acquired by the US bank. A Satyam spokeswoman said she could not confirm the reports and there was no immediate comment available from Bank of America. “Nobody really has accurate numbers (of staff), the restatement of numbers is going on through an internal and external process,” the Satyam spokeswoman said. Indian engineering giant Larsen & Toubro and telecom software firm Tech Mahindra Ltd are two confirmed bidders in the race for Satyam. But media reports have said there are up to eight. India’s Spice Group announced Friday it was temporarily withdrawing from the race for Satyam, complaining that the bidding process was not transparent. The company, once India’s fourth-biggest software services exporter by sales, has been struggling to pay wages and meet other expenses after founder B. Ramalinga Raju declared in January he inflated the company’s balance sheet by over a billion dollars and exaggerated profits.