Mahindra Satyam focuses on wooing back old clients

After having made public its financial results for the past two years, Mahindra Satyam is now busy wooing back old clients who left it after the Rs 14,000 crore scam was exposed last year, sources said.

Many of the clients had left due to the uncertainty that loomed large over the company (then Satyam Computer) in the absence of certified accounts. The company feels that it is on a stronger wicket now.

"The company is hopeful of getting (back) at least 25 per cent of the old customers in its fold, before the end of the fiscal," a source told PTI.

The clients who are yet to come to the company fold include State Farm Insurance and Coke.

Last week, Mahindra Satyam (Msat), formerly Satyam Computer Services, had reported the financial results for 2008-09 and 2009-10. It had reported a net loss of Rs 124.60 crore for the financial year ended March 2010, as against Rs 8,176.8 crore in FY09.

Meanwhile, the company's board has approved the delisting of its shares from the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) for failing to comply with the US accounting norms.

Looking ahead, the company has now starting focusing on building the business and bringing back old clients.

Mahindra Satyam CEO CP Gurnanai had said earlier that the company had about 500 active clients before the scam broke out in 2009. Now, it has 350 active clients. He had said that up to March 31, 2010, the company added 44 new clients.

"The company had initiated discussions with most of the big customers. Now that the numbers are out there should not be any problem. The picture will be clearer after the announcement of the quarter's results next month," said a source.

A company official said, meanwhile, that Msat's not having USGAAP accounts won't affect its plans, as numbers will speak same language for all, Indian accounting or US.

He said Msat was successful in closing deals with some of the big companies this year. It renewed a five-year contract with GlaxoSmithKline, world's leading research-based pharmaceutical and healthcare companies.

It signed an off-shoring deal with BASF IT Services, a leading IT service provider for the process industry in Europe.

Msat had signed a renewed four year offshore contract with KMD, one of Denmark's leading IT companies, worth about USD 48 million ending in December 2013.

Similarly, the company won two multi-million dollar contracts to be executed by its subsidiary, Satyam Servicos De Informatica Ltda, in Sao Paulo, Brazil.