MUMBAI BUSINESS COMMUNITY RAISES CHALLENGES TO IMPROVING

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 MUMBAI 000085 SENSITIVE SIPDIS USTR FOR AADLER E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: ECON EFIN EINV PGOV EAGR IN SUBJECT: MUMBAI BUSINESS COMMUNITY RAISES CHALLENGES TO IMPROVING CORPORATE GOVERNANCE IN THE WAKE OF THE SATYAM SCANDAL REF: A. A: Delhi 241 ¶B. B: CHENNAI 7 MUMBAI 00000085 001.2 OF 004 ¶1. (SBU) Summary: In meetings with Mumbai-based business executives and corporate governance experts, CongenOff heard that corporate governance is still at a nascent stage in India. While most acknowledged that the size of the Satyam Computer scandal was exceptional, interlocutors also believe that lapses in corporate governance are common throughout India's publicly traded companies, many of which are still family-run and controlled. Many Indian interlocutors agreed that Indian companies appear to follow the rules of good governance, but few comply with the spirit of those standards; the biggest hindrance is companies' reluctance to appoint truly independent directors to corporate boards, who can challenge the management and finances when questions arise. The Indian software lobby and the Indian government have acted quickly to stem the damage following the Satyam financial scandal and to attempt to restore faith and confidence in corporate India (reftels). However, our contacts felt that as long as promoters or majority shareholders play a role in managing the company, true corporate governance will likely remain an illusion rather than a reality. Without a robust judicial system or a more powerful regulator, our interlocutors expect little to change in the near-future. End Summary. Satyam Financial Scandal "Shocks" Corporate India and Throws the Spotlight on Corporate Governance -------------- ¶2. (U) On January 7, Ramalinga Raju, the founder and chairman of Satyam Computer Services, one of India's largest IT companies, confessed to manipulating the financial accounts of his company to the tune of over $1.6 billion (Ref B). Arrested immediately after this disclosure, Raju is being investigated for corporate fraud and for siphoning money from the company. Most interlocutors in Mumbai expressed shock at the size and nature of the fraud, as Satyam was considered a pioneer in India's IT industry and had won numerous corporate governance awards. Raju was a former Chairman of the National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM),the Indian IT trade association, and was himself a highly respected representative of India's IT industry. Overall, our interlocutors believe that the scandal has tarnished the image and reputation of corporate India and adversely affected investor confidence. ¶3. (SBU) Rajiv Vaishnav, Regional Director of NASSCOM, maintained that the Satyam fraud incident is an isolated one, not only in the IT industry, but throughout corporate India. He argued that Satyam represents a case of "intentional fraud" rather than bad corporate governance. S. Mahalingam, Executive Director and Chief Financial Officer at Tata Consultancy Services (TCS)(the biggest IT service exporter),agreed, and emphasized that the IT industry was generally "very well behaved;" he acknowledged, however, that when suddenly about $1.6 billion vanishes, it brings to light certain inherent deficiencies in the corporate governance standards. He insisted that this is a one-off case where an individual decided to act fraudulently. ¶4. (U) Darius Shroff, Senior Partner of renowned corporate law firm Crawford Bayley & Co, and one of Mumbai's most consistent advocates for better corporate governance, noted that there are now two extremes of corporate governance in the IT industry spectrum: Satyam is at one end, and Infosys Technologies, a "shining star" of corporate governance, is at the other. It is because of Infosys that people will not brand the Indian IT industry as a whole as "Satyam-infected," he said. Gopal Jain, Managing Partner of Gaja Capital, a private equity fund, stated that before the Satyam scandal, the IT sector was one of the few areas investors would not have suspected corporate frauds. As a result of the scandal, investors will take this as an additional risk to be considered when investing in Indian IT companies. Corporate Governance Rules "Robust" but Adherence and Enforcement "Lacking" -------------- ¶5. (U) Sammy Medora, Executive Director of KPMG and the firm's corporate governance expert, noted that corporate governance in India can be traced to the inception of Clause 49 in the listing MUMBAI 00000085 002.2 OF 004 agreement prescribed by the Securities & Exchange Board of India (SEBI) in 2000, which SEBI only started enforcing in 2006. (Note: A listing agreement specifies the guidelines that companies must follow to be publicly listed. End Note.) Clause 49 stipulates the minimum procedures a listed company should follow to ensure transparency and good governance. This includes the number of independent directors that should sit on a company's board, the establishment of an audit and shareholders' grievances committees, the disclosure of fees and salary paid to the directors, and other basic principles that ensure that the company is governed in the best interests of all shareholders. According to Clause 49, every listed company has to reserve half of the board for independent directors if the chairman is an executive director. One-third of board members have to be independent directors if the chairman is a non-executive director. These independent or non-executive directors should not have a pecuniary or business relationship with the company, its promoters or management, and should not be related to the promoters or senior management. ¶6. (SBU) Medora maintained that Clause 49 is a robust rule "without the excesses" of the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation which emerged following the financial and accounting scandals in the U.S. Nevertheless, KPMG's Medora admitted that although Indian listed companies adopt Clause 49 in practice, few companies follow the "true spirit" of the law. In a more dire assessment, Crawford Bayley's Shroff who is, himself, an independent director on the board of several companies, claimed that many Indian listed companies do not even comply with the "letter of the law." Shroff estimates that 18 percent of the near 5,000 companies listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange are non-compliant with the listing agreement. Several of these "non-conformers" are large public sector companies who do not have any independent directors on their boards, he continued. Shroff claimed that the executive directors of these companies "resist" appointing independent directors who may ask "inconvenient" questions. These companies claim that they cannot find independent directors who are willing to sit on their boards. He admitted that most independent directors are not enthused to attend board meetings of these government-owned companies, as each meeting tends to be 6-7 hours long. ¶7. (SBU) SEBI is empowered to take punitive measures against listed companies who do not comply with Clause 49. However, the sheer volume of listed companies in India -- which at over 6,000 is one of the largest in the world -- makes enforcement highly challenging, Medora admitted. SEBI's punitive power is limited to de-listing of the non-compliant company which hurts the minority shareholders and is not an effective deterrent, he explained. Shroff pointed out that SEBI did not have the resources of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to conduct investigations and punish non-compliance. The enforcement machinery in India can handle only 10 percent of violations, he admitted. Jain pointed to the India's backlogged courts as being responsible for the poor enforcement of corporate governance standards (ref A). He believes that only strong enforcement will deter executives tempted to commit fraud in a company. Jain said that without a robust judicial system, corporate fraud will continue to exist in India. Truly Independent Directors an Illusion in India -------------- ¶8. (SBU) Many interlocutors agreed that the presence of so-called independent directors on corporate boards did not mean they were independent, or took an active role in directing the company. TCS's Mahalingam and Medora both opined that while Satyam's independent directors were not involved in the fraud itself, they were definitely "not on the ball" and did not conduct the required due diligence before vetting the financial statements of the company. Shroff concurred and explained that independent directors sitting on Satyam's audit committee were responsible for verifying the financial statements of the company, and they were negligent in discharging their responsibility. ¶9. (SBU) Medora pointed out that most independent directors are friends or acquaintances of the company's executive directors or top management. While technically they meet the definition of independent directors, they are not truly independent, he MUMBAI 00000085 003.2 OF 004 explained. He also maintained that many Indian corporate leaders are "iconic" and other directors are wary about questioning or challenging their business decisions. Shroff agreed with Medora and added that compliance with Clause 49 is often "illusionary." Tale of One or Many Satyams? -------------- ¶10. (SBU) Unlike the U.S. and Europe, most public companies in India are still controlled by families, or aligned families (here, the controllers of a company -- which are sometimes complicated, inter-family webs -- are known as "promoters.") Indeed, according our interlocutors, there may be only two prominent non-family controlled, professionally run companies: the major construction company Larsen & Toubro and Infosys. In many cases, families and promoters may only own a small percentage of the company -- as was the case with Satyam -- but actual control is still held tightly by the head promoter and/or family head. Shishir Tamotia, CEO of Ispat Energy, (Note: Tamotia is an outside executive who is CEO of Ispat Energy, a subsidiary of leading integrated steel maker Ispat Industries which is owned by steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal's brother. End Note.) believes that corporate India has evolved its own model of corporate governance which is different from the Western model. Most Indian companies are family-owned and many have been handed down from generation to generation. It is difficult for the owners to manage the company at an "arms length," which is what good corporate governance entails, he continued. Company management should be "emotionally detached" from the business for true corporate governance to succeed. Shroff agreed and noted that there will always be a "conflict" between independent directors and the executive management of a company who are pressured by demands of stock options, profitability and bonuses. Besides "unadulterated greed", he has heard of promoters committing fraud to boost stock prices or to boost market expectations or influence analyst expectations of future earnings, he added. ¶11. (SBU) For example, a senior manager at an Indian financial services company - who is himself the son of the company's founder, and whose family owns 51 percent of the company - alleged financial inappropriateness in a large Indian company, which recently purchased another company on which his company served as broker. According to the senior partner, the acquiring company publicly offered Rs. 1000 ($20) per share to buy a majority stake in the company, but paid an additional Rs. 600 ($12) per share privately into a Swiss bank account to the acquisition's owner, for a total of Rs. 1600 ($32) per share. The two companies connived to do this, the partner claimed, because SEBI rules require that companies buying a large block of shares from a promoter must offer to buy an additional 20 percent of shares from other public shareholders at the same price offered to the promoter (or large shareholder). The acquiring company didn't want to buy an additional 20 percent of shares at Rs. 1600, so ensured the publicly offered price was at a much less attractive Rs. 1000 - thereby cheating the shareholders of the purchase price, as well as the revenue department. The senior partner claimed this was "common practice" in such deals. ¶12. (SBU) Ispat Energy's Tamotia believes most businesses in India are run like Satyam, with little regard for true governance. Shareholders are unconcerned as long as the company's stock continues to appreciate. Nevertheless, he does not expect corporate fraud to be discovered in other companies because there is too much at stake, and not because they are without blame. The government, he said, is not prepared to take the risk of more embarrassing disclosures. As long as shareholders make money, no one cares, he added. KPMG's Medora disagreed with Tamotia and said that while there may be a few more deviant Indian companies, fraud is not endemic or symptomatic in corporate India. In contrast, Shroff believes that revenue fraud is "rampant" in companies. (Note: This includes discrepancies in transfer pricing and asset valuation. End Note). There is a thin line between tax evasion and tax avoidance, he noted. He thought that other frauds like defrauding minority shareholders and defrauding employees are prevalent to a lesser extent. Shroff argued that if the CEO and CFO of a company collude, neither the board nor the audit MUMBAI 00000085 004.2 OF 004 committee will find out about the fraud. Going Forward~ -------------- ¶13. (U) Shroff explained that corporate governance is an evolutionary process and cannot be achieved overnight. Medora believes that tweaking existing rules and enhancing enforcement will help achieve better standards of governance, rather than more regulation. There will be a renewed interest and increased discussions on corporate governance in the months ahead, he continued. Independent directors may re-think the number of directorships that they hold. (Note: Currently, an individual can hold up to 15 directorships at one time, which many feel is too many to pay due attention. End Note). TCS's Mahalingam added that there was a need for the Audit Committee executives to be independent and more financially literate. ¶14. (U) SEBI is also considering the mandatory rotation of auditors. Currently, auditors are required to rotate every four years and two years in the banking and insurance industries, respectively in India, but there are no rotation requirements in other sectors. Representatives from the Big Four accounting firms have naturally expressed their opposition to rotation requirements, arguing that frequent rotations between firms leads to major losses of knowledge about a company, which could open the door to fraud or manipulation. In addition, Big Four representatives note that most firms have an internal requirement to rotate supervising partners every few years. On the other hand, more frequent rotations might prevent auditors from becoming overly familiar with the management of a company. Medora believes that SEBI may also announce a peer review of auditors. Currently, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) conducts peer reviews of audit firms, but SEBI could decide the peer reviewer for each firm. Medora also argued for a regulator for the auditing profession in India which is currently under the ICAI, a self-regulatory organization. Comment: -------------- ¶15. (U) Mumbai's business community feels that the Satyam financial scandal has highlighted the inadequacies of corporate governance law but it has few answers (yet) on how to imbibe the true "spirit" of corporate governance in India's largely family-owned companies. As long as promoters of the company play a direct role in management, Mumbai interlocutors view good corporate governance as more of an illusion rather than a reality. In older companies, where company heads are treated as celebrities and heroes on par with film stars, movements to force change at the top are unlikely to work. As Indian companies increasingly aspire to be global companies, they face the inconvenient fact that transparency and good governance matter to investors. Whether the fallout of Satyam forces them to concede this remains to be seen. End Comment. FOLMSBEE