Time to wipe out the mess at Satyam

Here’s another one to add to the on-going ‘Satyam Saga’.

The Satyam Computer Services today said it has made amendments to the bidding process to rank the suitors for their technical bids. And the criteria will be based on price only. Earlier, the bids were not ranked.

For those who came in late, a government appointed board is trying to sell control of the firm, which was plunged into crisis in January.

Meanwhile, the company has also said that it will share the financial details of the past 2-4 months with the buyers after scrutiny of their expression of interests.

The major buyers who have shown interest in the company are Spice, L&T and Tech Mahindra.

Sensex on a high, but realty market still low

There was some good news from the stock market today, with the realty stocks helping the Sensex rise 193 points to finish in the green.

All the 13 sectoral indices on the exchange turned positive, with the indices for realty, IT and oil and gas stocks generating interest among traders owing to their low valuations.

The 30-scrip Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) sensitive index (Sensex), which opened at 9,745.77 points, rose 193.49 points or 1.99 percent to close at 9,901.99 points.

However, whether this push will help the realty sector in reality is yet to be seen. For the real estate market is still reeling under the ongoing recession.

But, the experts say it’s not exactly recession but market correction. Maybe, but there isn’t going to be any major price hikes as far as housing is concerned.

Is the slowdown forcing builders to move out of metros?

It’s been rather long that I haven’t posted. I was not in town and kept rather busy. Still, I owe you guys an apology.

Anyway, here’s something to cover up the loss…

Today, while going through the papers, I found a report in the ET with a header – ‘Small is beautiful in real estate finds Omaxe’.

As the headline suggests Omaxe has decided to stick to small projects to keep its costs low. It has even launched an integrated township in Vrindavan. And according to the report the township “will entail 1 Room (Studio) and 2 Room apartments ranging between Rs 7.25 lakhs and Rs 14.25 lakhs targeting frequent visitors.”

They have even projected a 12-15% net gain from the project.

Now…now, I have touched upon this subject earlier, but the point that I intend to make here is that more and more builders are moving away from the metros and the reason is simple – recession.

The ongoing slowdown has reduced the profit margin so much that investing in real estate in the metros no longer seems like a feasible option for builders.

In fact, an increasing number of companies have started focusing on their core businesses to counter the slowdown. And this trend has not just been restricted to real estate companies but has spread across the board.

Omaxe too is following the same route. The company, which started as a construction firm before moving on to real estate, has once again gone back to it’s roots by bagging a Rs 39.95 crore contracts from Haryana State Roads & Bridges Development Corporation.

This is what the company CMD Rohtas Goel said in the report:

“In the past six months we have received construction orders worth Rs 650 crores and we are expected to receive another Rs 650 crore turnover in the next six months.”

“We were a construction company by origin. We see this as good way to buck the slowdown in real estate business so we have restarted construction activity after we stopped it in the year 2000 to concentrate on real estate.”

Interesting joke on Satyam’s Raju

Three world famous magicians were in the bar drinking and boasting about their achievements.

The first one said, “During my latest show, I made three women from the audience disappear, it was so convincing that their relatives started panicking, no one could find the trick!”

The second one said, “Hey, that is nothing. During one of my open air shows I made the Municipality building disappear and the entire town was searching for it!”

The third one sighed and said, “Both of you are so local, I went to Paris and made the Eiffel Tower disappear for a full one hour, it was live on the TV, entire France was searching for the building & no one had a clue.”

Just then an Indian walked into the bar and the three magicians suddenly turned quiet, gave each other fugitive glances and started to slip towards the door.

A Bartender watching this got curious and asked one of the magicians, “Hey what happened? Who is that guy?”

One of the magicians whispered, “He is the World’s greatest magician, he has done the biggest disappearing trick of all times, we are all mere amateurs compared with what he has done. His name is Ramalinga Raju. He has made $1.5 billion disappear from his company’s balance sheet in front of everyone’s eyes, and the entire world is still looking for it.”