NEWSMAKER: B Teja Raju

Everybody got up and took notice of Maytas Infra when it bagged the Hyderabad Metro Rail Project on the back of a unique proposition — instead of receiving payments to execute the project it said it will give money to the state.

And last week when Delhi Metro Chairman E Sreedharan called it a real estate play, Hyderabad Metro promptly cancelled its consultancy contract.

Despite the questions raised on the viability of the Maytas Infra model for the Rs 12,000-crore Hyderabad Metro Rail Project, B Teja Raju, the vice-chairman of Maytas Infra, had decided to keep his cool, tight-lipped and with a smile. Like father, like son.

Teja Raju, the elder son of Satyam Computer Services’ founder and chairman B Ramalinga Raju, chose to tread a different path. Early in life he opted for the family’s brick-and-mortar (read real estate and infrastructure) business, rather than joining Satyam, in which his father has just about 14 per cent stake.

For the record, Teja Raju is one of the promoters of Maytas Infra and has served on its board since 2001. He is an engineer with an MS from Carnegie Mellon in the US. He participated in the Young Entrepreneurs forum with US president George Bush at the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad.

He is also actively involved in Satyam’s corporate social responsibility initiatives through the company’s NGO arms, Byrraju Foundation and the 108 ambulance service called Emergency Medical and Research Institute.

Envisioning new opportunities seems to be in the Raju veins. Ramalinga Raju too headed home from Ohio in the US with an MBA degree in 1975, full of beans and brimming with ideas to build a new business for the family. (His father, Byrraju Satyanarayana Raju, was into grape cultivation).

A lesser known fact is that before plunging into information technology with Satyam in 1989, he had taken up cotton-spinning and construction.

It was widely anticipated that the next Raju generation too would blaze its own trail. On many occasions, the Hyderabad media had quizzed Ramalinga Raju whether his two sons, Teja raju and Rama Raju who is heading Maytas Properties, would be inducted into the $2-billion Satyam, like Azim Premji’s son, Rishad, joining Wipro.

“My sons will not join Satyam even if I ask them to do so as they are doing an ‘exciting’ business,” is all the answer they got.

Exciting it is indeed. The nearly two decades old Maytas Infra has been taking up an array of projects including roads, expressways, buildings and structures, irrigation canals and dams, thermal and hydro-power projects and oil and gas. It went public and got listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange in October 2007 at Rs 370 per share.

The company, in which the promoters hold nearly 36 per cent, has a market cap of over Rs 5,000 crore. Its order book stands at over Rs 4,000 crore. Maytas reported a net profit of Rs 20 crore on a total income of Rs 391 crore for the quarter ended June 2008.

Teja Raju spearheads Maytas Infra’s foray into new business segments such as railway, metro rail, oil and gas pipelines, airports and seaports, power generation and industrial construction. Still, company insiders say, Teja Raju prefers to stay in the background and is media-shy.

“He has infused a lot of corporate practices into Maytas Infra, creating strategic business divisions like the various software verticals led by professionals,” they add.

Maytas is now aggressively looking at the aviation sector and has already bagged two projects in Karnataka, which would entail an investment of about Rs 92 crore. The company plans to bid for more projects in the country with its partner Vienna Airport Company, besides pitching for overseas projects.

The Rajus have indeed come a long way from grapes, cotton-spinning and information technology.