Is Satyam the “Enron” of Offshore?

Satyam chief resigns over inflated assets

By Heather Timmons

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

NEW DELHI:
Satyam Computer Services, a leading Indian outsourcing company, hugely
inflated earnings and assets for years, the chairman and co-founder
said Wednesday, roiling stock markets in India and throwing a pall over
the country’s foremost business sector.

The chairman, Ramalinga Raju, 54, tendered his resignation after
revealing that he had regularly falsified Satyam’s accounts as the
company expanded from a handful of employees into a back-office giant
with 53,000 workers in 66 countries.

The fraud is one of the largest ever in India and could affect the
daily operations of Satyam’s more than 600 clients, which include
one-third of the Fortune 500, the top U.S. companies by revenue.

A huge chunk of the company’s finances were fake. Of the 53.6
billion rupees in cash and bank balances that Satyam listed as assets
at the end of its second quarter, 50.4 billion rupees, or about $1
billion, were nonexistent, Raju said in a letter to the Satyam board
that was distributed by the Bombay Stock Exchange.

Revenue for the quarter that ended on Sept. 30 was actually 20
percent lower than the 27 billion rupees reported, and the company’s
operating margin for the quarter was just 10 percent of what was
reported, he said.

Why Crude Oil Will Present Investors with a Golden Opportunity in 2009

By Jason Simpkins

Associate Editor

Money Morning

Oil prices have fallen 70% since hitting a
record $147.27 a barrel in July, which means in just five months, crude
has given up all the price gains it made in the past four years.

After such a wrenching plunge, many analysts believe the outlook for
the “black gold” remains bleak – and in the short term it certainly is.
In the long run, however, dwindling supplies, resurgent demand, and a
lack of investment will cause crude oil to double, triple, or even
quintuple in price over the next few years.

In fact, the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA) – energy
advisor to 28 industrialized nations – says oil will rise to $100 a
barrel by 2015, as a result of a major “supply crunch,” and will
ultimately soar to $200 a barrel.

But before it does, prices are likely to sink even further, perhaps
falling as low as $20 a barrel in the first quarter of the New Year.

Indeed, much of Wall Street expects oil prices to average about $50
a barrel in 2009. Some of the firms and their specific forecasts
include:

Why Crude Oil Will Present Investors with a Golden Opportunity in 2009

By Jason Simpkins

Associate Editor

Money Morning

Oil prices have fallen 70% since hitting a
record $147.27 a barrel in July, which means in just five months, crude
has given up all the price gains it made in the past four years.

After such a wrenching plunge, many analysts believe the outlook for
the “black gold” remains bleak – and in the short term it certainly is.
In the long run, however, dwindling supplies, resurgent demand, and a
lack of investment will cause crude oil to double, triple, or even
quintuple in price over the next few years.

In fact, the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA) – energy
advisor to 28 industrialized nations – says oil will rise to $100 a
barrel by 2015, as a result of a major “supply crunch,” and will
ultimately soar to $200 a barrel.

But before it does, prices are likely to sink even further, perhaps
falling as low as $20 a barrel in the first quarter of the New Year.

Indeed, much of Wall Street expects oil prices to average about $50
a barrel in 2009. Some of the firms and their specific forecasts
include:

Why Crude Oil Will Present Investors with a Golden Opportunity in 2009

By Jason Simpkins

Associate Editor

Money Morning

Oil prices have fallen 70% since hitting a
record $147.27 a barrel in July, which means in just five months, crude
has given up all the price gains it made in the past four years.

After such a wrenching plunge, many analysts believe the outlook for
the “black gold” remains bleak – and in the short term it certainly is.
In the long run, however, dwindling supplies, resurgent demand, and a
lack of investment will cause crude oil to double, triple, or even
quintuple in price over the next few years.

In fact, the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA) – energy
advisor to 28 industrialized nations – says oil will rise to $100 a
barrel by 2015, as a result of a major “supply crunch,” and will
ultimately soar to $200 a barrel.

But before it does, prices are likely to sink even further, perhaps
falling as low as $20 a barrel in the first quarter of the New Year.

Indeed, much of Wall Street expects oil prices to average about $50
a barrel in 2009. Some of the firms and their specific forecasts
include:

Why Crude Oil Will Present Investors with a Golden Opportunity in 2009

By Jason Simpkins

Associate Editor

Money Morning

Oil prices have fallen 70% since hitting a
record $147.27 a barrel in July, which means in just five months, crude
has given up all the price gains it made in the past four years.

After such a wrenching plunge, many analysts believe the outlook for
the “black gold” remains bleak – and in the short term it certainly is.
In the long run, however, dwindling supplies, resurgent demand, and a
lack of investment will cause crude oil to double, triple, or even
quintuple in price over the next few years.

In fact, the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA) – energy
advisor to 28 industrialized nations – says oil will rise to $100 a
barrel by 2015, as a result of a major “supply crunch,” and will
ultimately soar to $200 a barrel.

But before it does, prices are likely to sink even further, perhaps
falling as low as $20 a barrel in the first quarter of the New Year.

Indeed, much of Wall Street expects oil prices to average about $50
a barrel in 2009. Some of the firms and their specific forecasts
include:

Saving an Oil Giant

For years the most prominent public role for Peter Sutherland
as chairman of BP PLC was to play host at the company’s yearly meeting.

But after a string of oil spills, deadly accidents and an
energy-trading scandal at BP, the 60-year-old former rugby player has
rushed into the scrum.

Last year, the Irish politician and prominent banker forced Chief
Executive John Browne to publicly identify his retirement date. After
Lord Browne’s shock decision last month to leave a year and a half
earlier than planned, Mr. Sutherland must now buff BP’s image and
manage the company’s first executive-suite transition in more than a
decade.

Despite oil prices dramatically increasing its shares rose just 4.5
per cent in 2006, compared with a 36 per cent rise by Exxon Mobil Corp.
and 15 per cent at Royal Dutch Shell PLC. Yesterday, the company
announced 4th quarter net income decreased by 22 per cent, in part this
can be seen as indicative of lower natural-gas prices and lower
production.

BP, meanwhile, faces U.S. criminal probes on three fronts —
corrosion and oil spills in Alaska; a March 2005 refinery blast that
killed 15 in Texas; and its energy-trading practices, with federal
officials alleging BP traders manipulated propane markets in 2004. BP
refutes this claim and says it is cooperating with investigators on all
three inquiries.

Mr. Sutherland’s prominent public standing also underpins a pattern
that goes beyond BP: a shift in the boardroom dynamics at many of
Europe’s biggest publicly traded companies. Nonexecutive directors here
have in the past been criticized for leaving too much decision-making
in the hands of powerful executives. Now, many companies are moving to
strengthen their boards with independent and strong directors.

Natural-gas producers set charter

MOSCOW:
With Russian support, a dozen countries that are large producers of
natural gas founded an organization Tuesday to study methods of
influencing global prices for the fuel, much as the Organization of
Petroleum Exporting Countries does for crude oil.

The development seems likely to further unnerve European Union
countries, already wary over their growing dependence on Russian energy
and what critics say are efforts by Moscow to use oil and natural gas
exports as leverage to reassert sway over former East Bloc nations.

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