Among the advertising signs that dot the sidelines on all World Cup pitches is one familiar to most Indians - Mahindra Satyam is one of the eight World Cup sponsors, the first from India, and is tasked with handling the IT and software side of tournament.
This isn’t newsy until put in context: 18 months ago, Satyam was at the centre of India’s largest corporate scam, when the company’s founder confessed to having inflated the accounts by $1.5 billion. The scandal - dubbed India’s Enron for the similarity in scale and style of operations - shook the country and cast a shadow over the flagship IT industry.
When the scam broke in January 2009, Satyam was India’s fourth-largest software services company and its founder Ramalinga Raju a leader of the industry and a hero to the thousands of Satyam employees, called “associates”; within days Raju was in jail (where he now awaits trial), the stocks plummeted and were taken off the major global bourses and, eventually, the company was handed over to a government-appointed panel before being bought by engineering giants Mahindra.
So how did such a tainted company remain a FIFA sponsor, rubbing billboard shoulders with the likes of MacDonalds, Budweiser and Castrol?
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