K Ramalingam named Chairman of Maytas Infra board

9 Apr 2009 ET Bureau


HYDERABAD: K Ramalingam, former Chairman of the Airports Authority of India (AAI), and Maytas Infra’s newly inducted board member, has been named Chairman of the board.

Ramalingam and Anil K Agarwal, past president of Assocham were appointed in the first week of April as additional directors on board by the Company Law Board.

The government had last month appointed noted tax lawyer O P Vaish and past president of Institute of Chartered Accountants of India Ved Jain on the board of Maytas Infra following an order by the Company Law Board in this regard.

Maytas Infra is promoted by B Teja Raju, son of B Ramalinga Raju disgraced founder of Satyam Computers. The firm was starved of funds after Ramalinga Raju confessed to perpetrating a Rs, 7,000 crore financial fraud at Satyam.

The government wanted to supersede the Maytas board, but this was turned down by the Company Law Board. The CLB instead issued a directive to the government to appoint four nominee directors.

Maytas Infra is now undergoing a corporate debt restructuring (CDR) exercise. CDR is done to re-organise the outstanding obligations to financial institutions.

Banks have an exposure of around Rs 5000 crore in the firm.

It has an order book of about Rs 8,000 crore, apart from the prestigious Rs 12,000 crore Metro Rail Project, which is in a limbo.