Satyam business leaders frequently sold stock options

Feb 08, 2009
Most of these shares were sold between mid-2006 and 2008



HYDERABAD: When an insider of Satyam Computer Services A. S. Murty was made the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), pat came the news of his selling about 40,000 shares between December 12 and 16 and the questions on whether he resorted to illegal insider trading.

Insider trading per se is not illegal. Sale or purchase of shares by people privy to price-sensitive information, before it is intimated to the regulator and the stock markets, is, however, a crime. However, Board Chairman Kiran Karnik, and Member Deepak Parekh said they were aware of such transactions but found nothing illegal.

Yet, a close look at the filings by the company with the National Stock Exchange since September 2004 is interesting. They reveal that many of those identified as ‘Business Leaders’ by erstwhile Chairman of Satyam B. Ramalinga Raju sold the employee stock options (ESOPs) at regular intervals.

What’s more, Mr. Murty sold the shares frequently since October 2004. If Srinivas Vadlamani, the jailed CFO, sold in all 3.65 lakh shares, the highest by any employee in the last four-and-a-half years, Mr. Murty sold the second largest number of shares — 3.14 lakh shares.

Company president Ram Mynampati exercised 1.83 lakh stock options in the Indian stock market and 56,250 American Depository Shares (ADS) in the U.S. during the last few years. Manish Mehta and T. R. Anand too figured among those who sold more than a lakh of shares each, closely followed by Keshab Panda, who exercised over 90,000 stock options.

Most of these shares were sold between mid-2006 and mid-2008 when the Satyam’s scrip ruled high between Rs. 350 and Rs. 480, fetching fat sums. For instance, Mr. Murty sold 17,000 shares on March 29, 2007, and 30,000 shares in just another week, on April 4, the same year. The sale on April 4 alone fetched him about Rs. 1.38 crore considering that the stock opened at Rs. 465 on the BSE on that day.

Of course, “it cannot be proved whether Mr. Murty is aware of the price sensitive decision of the company’s move to acquire Maytas Infra and Maytas Properties when he sold the shares in December, as he is not on the then board,” said Ambareesh Baliga, Vice-President, Karvy Broking. None could stop a shareholder from selling the stocks as the ESOPs were meant for sale. Surely, some senior employees must have been aware that “every thing was not hunky dory with the company,” he said