A load of crap from an idle brain

Been a while since i updated my equity portfolio.  Some of the stocks were already at their highs; and i felt it was appropriate time for me to liquidate them and invest in others.

Bought the following

Sold the following

Hoping for the markets to correct sharply once the much expected double dip recession hits the US economy.  There would be lots of great bargains out there then.

Above stock price history courtesy:  Yahoo Finance

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Seriously, its high time the government of India paid proper heed to push up the manufacturing industry in the country.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh dropped a bombshell at the meeting of the full planning commission on Tuesday when he disclosed that the US computer hardware giant Dell was looking at shifting out of China, and hinted that the company may be looking at India as its sourcing base. Dell, he quoted the company’s chairman as saying, buys $25 billion from China. China’s loss could mean a huge gain for India, he added.

The news comes on the heels of software giant Google shutting down its search engine in mainland China and redirecting Chinese language search traffic to Hong Kong.

The prime minister, in his closing remarks at the plan panel meet, said: “A very important point has been raised regarding development of the hardware sector of information technology. This morning I met the chairman of Dell Corporation. He informed me that they are buying equipment and parts worth $25 billion from China. They would like to shift to safer environment with climate conducive to enterprise with security of legal system. So I think this is an area where there are immense opportunities. I urge the Planning Commission to apply their mind about development of hardware and parts of computer industry.”

Full article here

Google picture courtesy:  Apple Investor

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It was 1997 when i first worked on this product.  It was the version 4.5 and called Lotus Notes. A few months later, it became 4.6 and the server was formally christened as Domino and the client was lotus notes.

On December 7, 2009, Lotus Notes completed 20 years.  At a time when a software or a service hardly goes beyond a few years Lotus with around 150 million licenses sold and with thousands of professionals and a big slice of Fortune 500 companies using the software, its not dead as expected by its rivals.

For years, Microsoft tried every trick in its book to not only diss the product, but also spread mis-information that Lotus Notes is dying, its clumsy, its not user friendly and lots of other accusations.  Some accusations stuck.  The lotus notes client was not user friendly till about version 7.  Thereafter, IBM has really spruced up the client part of the software.

The server as always has been robutst. Its a dream software for the administrators to administer.  To administer a complex and massive Lotus Domino setup you hardly need a few administrators, but to manage the competing Microsoft Exchange, you need an army.  For a product which has hardly has had any virus that has managed to infect the system, it itself is a testament to the robustness of Lotus Notes.  As for Exhchange, Outlook we know how many times its been affected not only by viruses but also the amount of security compromises that have happened with the software.

I downloaded the Lotus Domino 8.5 trial copy and managed to run both the server and client on my PC at home effortlessly.  My PC is a 1.5 GB RAM Opteron processor Compaq machine.  Almost 4 years old.  In spite of that, the software was hardly hogging any memory.  With the Domino server and the lotus client working in the background, i was able to browse the net on my firefox browser (20 tabs open at the same time).  That’s when i realised reading a previous article that Lotus 8.5 was much much faster than Lotus 8.  Surprising isnt it?

When it comes to Micorosoft, every new upgrade means a rip and replace.  You can never run Windows XP on a machine running Windows 98 or a Vista on a XP machine and so on.  Heck, the new version of Microsoft Exchange 2010 is an exclusive 64 bit application and you need a 64 bit hardware to even test it out.  Now beat that.

Today, we look back 20 years and see nearly 150 million licenses sold, tens of millions of applications created, and hundreds of thousands of IT professionals whose careers have involved, or continue to be involved with, the industry that has grown up around Lotus Notes and Domino.

Over these 20 years, people have come and gone.  Technologies have changed.  The market for collaboration software has, in some ways, just hit its stride.  At times criticized as difficult, ugly, or unusable, while at other times running businesses and providing solutions where nothing else could, in its first 20 years, Lotus Notes has been more than just a software product.  It has, through its use in a diverse set of organizations around the world, helped usher in the modern era of information sharing, and continues to set pace in that capacity today.  Despite bad press that has occurred frequently and regularly in that 20 years, Notes/Domino is a huge business today for IBM and 10,000 business partners worldwide — many of whom are continuing to grow their business, and others are just starting up.

Full article here

Here’s wishing another 20 more years for this wonderful software.  More about IBM Lotus here

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What the successor has to manage.  A 140 year old group with….

Turnover – $71 billion

Employees – 357,000

Number of companies under the group – 98

To replace – Ratan Tata

Anyone interested / capable ?

India’s Tata conglomerate is looking around the world for a successor to Ratan Tata, the 71-year old chairman of the sprawling salt-to-steel group said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal published on Wednesday.

Local and foreign candidates were being looked at to head the group, which includes Tata Motors, Tata Steel, Tata Consultancy Services and Tata Power among its 27 listed companies

“We are in the process of formalising a successor to me. We have some outside consultants and a formal search process is on. There are no constraints,” Tata, who has steered the group for nearly two decades, said in the interview.

The successor could be from within the group or outside, Tata said, adding he hoped the person would carry on the growth path that had been set. All but one of the group’s past chairmans have been Tatas, although at the moment no family candidate has been publicly identified to take over the role.

“It would certainly be easier if that candidate were an Indian national. But now that 65 percent of our revenues come from overseas, it could also be an expatriate sitting in that position with justification now,” Tata said.

The group, founded in 1868, runs India’s top vehicle maker, top software services firm, top private sector power producer and the world’s eighth-largest steel maker by output.

Full news here

Finally a tried and tested person at the helm of such a prestigious project.  Hope he gets the time and space to deliver and is not hounded by petty minded politicians.

Nandan Nilekani resigned as Co-Chairman of Infosys Technologies and its board on Thursday, following his appointment as Chairman of an IT-driven Government program for providing unique identification numbers to citizens of the country.

“The Board of Directors at Infosys has already accepted Nilekani’s resignation. The resignation would be effective from July 9, 2009,” said the company.

Nilekani will take charge as Chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India with the rank of Cabinet Minister.

As co-founder of India’s second-largest software exporting firm, Nilekani served as director on the Infosys board since its inception in 1981.

Between March 2002 and June 2007, he served as the company’s chief executive officer and managing director. He was later re-designated as Co-Chairman of the Board of Directors.

“We are glad that an extraordinary individual like Nandan has got an opportunity to add value to India through this position. As a company that has always put the interest of society ahead of itself, Infosys will accept his absence with a sense of duty to a larger cause,” Infosys Chairman and Mentor N R Narayana Murthy said.

More here.

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The new year has not been off to a great start, at least blogging wise for me.  For some strange reason, iam not even checking my blog, visiting any other blogs or even commenting on them. Contrary to the economic conditions worldwide, am swamped with work.  On my way back home, am so tired that i hardly can open a book and read.

The songs in my Creative Zen play in my head as i doze off.  Fortunately, i haven’t missed out on my bus stop.  Eitherway, the bus interchange is quite close to my home and even if i don’t wake up, the driver will kick me out once the bus reaches the interchange.

Before i could realise, the 4 day weekend passed by.  Did nothing constructive. Just lazed around at home and watched 6 movies.  Some of them i have updated at the Movies page.

I have almost stopped reading the newspapers thoroughly.  With layoffs to the emergence of Talibans in Mangalore, the Thuggerays in Bombay to the incessant coverage of Manmohan Singh’s health conditions, its getting routine and boring.  With so much of bad news around, i hardly need any more in the papers to feel more glum.  So, i have made it a point to no longer read any news in detail that sounds negative.

The only positive thing that happened is that South Africa beat the hell out of the Aussies both in the test and one-dayers.  Pricky Ricky Ponting’s face was well worth watching during the match.  Everything that he is laying his hands on is turning into cow dung.  Looks like Australia committed the same mistakes that West Indies did in the 90s after a superb 80s.  By not managing to get effective players to replace the likes of Waugh brothers, Taylor, Warne, McGrath, Slater, Hayden etc the Aus team is now in a serious rut.

Warner and Shaun Marsh are great prospects, but Aus doesnt have a bowling lineup that can bowl out an opposition twice in a test match.  In McGrath and Warne they had 2 of the most lethal and consistent bowlers.  Of course such players are born only once in a generation, but for sure there has been no good nurturing of the kids to replace the giants.

Compared to them, i believe the Indian team has done a better transition.  With Kumble and Ganguly gone and with Dravid almost out, India has lost a majority of the Fab 5 that it boasted of.  The one day team has no one from the Fab 5 except Sachin Tendulkar and unlike the past when we switched off the TV when Sachin got out, today hardly anyone blinks.

From the boring domination of the Aussies at the beginning of this decade to a much more rounded competition (South Africa, India and Australia), i believe we could be looking at much better matches ahead.

Also once Muralitharan and Jayasuriya hang their gloves, Sri Lanka would also be on their way down.

So, what have i been doing in the past 2 months ever since the markets crashed and the economic gloom all around? Invest in the stock markets of course.  Some of the best companies are available at dirt cheap prices or at the lowest ever prices in their lifetime.  I know of a lot of people who are staying away and waiting for the markets to stabilize (am not sure what that means), but am buying.

I have started buying small amounts in L&T even though am not really appreciative of the L&T management trying its luck in the Satyam muck.  I have also started buying into Tata Motors.  Also have averaged out my investments in Reliance Communications, Punj Lloyd, Suzlon & Praj Industries.

Disclaimer:  I would like to hereby declare that all the investments that i write in my posts are not to be taken as an advice.  Iam not responsible for any losses that you might make by following  what i have mentioned in this blog. Please approach a Certified Financial Advisor for more info or do your own research before investing.

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After all its not all what it seems it is.  Even though Ramalinga Raju tried to put up an innocent face in the resignation drama and has tried to take all the blame himeslf, it doesnt still seem to add up.  Its always been suspected that Raju was never interested in the IT field and Satyam was just a facade for him to rake in easy money which he could funnel into his other businesses in textiles and real estate.

With earnings in dollars from the software business, it was easy for Raju to divert the money to other businesses that his family was handling.  Meanwhile, the government has ordered investigation into all the companies under the satyam umbrella.  They are

Maytas Properties
Maytas Infra
Satyam BPO
Nipuna Services
Knowledge Dynamics
Nitor Global Solutions
CA Satyam AS
Satyam Venture Engineering Services

What’s more baffling is that the Hyderabad police is still waiting for someone to lodge a FIR against Raju before they can arrest him.  Its a known fact that Ramalinga Raju has his contacts in all the top places in politics.  His closeness to Chandra Babu Naidu and the current CM of Andhra Pradesh, YS Rajasekhar Reddy is well known.  Is that the reason why the police is apprehensive about arresting Raju fully knowing that they might step on the toes of some very powerful people?

As for the most funniest news yesterday, it seems the Crime Branch – Criminal Investigative Department (CB-CID) wing of the Hyderabad police has no idea of how to investigate an economic crime.  So, they are willing to let the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) handle this.  The CBI has a wing that is completely dedicated to investigate such crimes. So much for law enforcement.

Here’s the catch: A 3% margin — which is what Raju said Satyam had actually made — is ridiculously low in the IT industry. Forget Infosys, which made 33% in the same quarter, all IT firms of similar or even smaller size make between 20% and 30%. There’s no way Satyam, which services 185 Fortune 500 firms, could have such a low profit margin, said every analyst we spoke to. What’s more, even people in Satyam dont believe Raju. TOI, in its Thursday edition, quoted a Satyam staffer saying, “His letter implies that we worked at a margin of 3%. That’s pure unadulterated crap.”

So, if Satyam was operating on a much higher margin, why would Raju choose to say it was actually much lower? The implication is that more money was coming into the company in the form of higher profit, but it was being siphoned out.

It’s a crime to show money in the books where none existed, which is what Raju said he did. But it’s a worse crime to take out money that actually did exist. There’s speculation that Raju was doing so in order to invest in other businesses such as real estate, and did intend to put it back in Satyam at some point of time, but possibly got into such a jam that he couldnt replenish the company’s coffers.

The 3% margin question was put to the interim CEO Ram Mynampati at a press conference in Hyderabad on Thursday. He side-stepped the question.

Read the rest of the article here that indicates that Raju might not have been only responsible for inflating the cash in the books, but was in fact stealing the money made by Satyam and funnelling them into other businesses headed by members of his family.

If the above mentioned accusation can be proved by the law enforcement agencies, Ramalinga Raju is in for some serious trouble.  But like with every other offence that has occurred in our country, iam very pessimistic about Raju getting his just desserts. He might just walk off the hook and the lakhs of shareholders will be left clutching at the straws.  As for the supposedly 53,000 employees in Satyam, is it true that they really have so many employees?  Or was it another spin of the great crook called Ramalinga Raju?

Who knows?

Above cartoon from : Twenty22

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The Satyam mountain of lies crumble in face of evidence.  As per Ramalinga Raju, a big 4 consulting company had advised the management on the Satyam-Maytas deal.  All the top 4 consulting firms (Pricewaterhouse Coopers, Deloitte, Ernst & Young and KPMG) have now denied being a part of the deal.

Satyam’s valuation of unlisted Maytas Properties is turning out to be a whodunit. The big four audit firms have denied any role in the
generous valuation of the private company owned by the Raju family. Satyam’s abortive attempt last week to acquire Maytas has turned into a blazing corporate governance controversy.

Satyam had said that one of the big four audit firms was the advisor to the board. And, based on this report, the board had proceeded with the acquisition of privately-owned real estate company of the Rajus for $1.3 billion (about Rs 6,240 crore).

In an email to ET, an E&Y spokesperson said, “I would like to reiterate that Ernst & Young was not involved with the Satyam-Maytas transaction.” ET received similar responses from PwC, Deloitte and KPMG. ET interacted with the spokespersons of PwC and Deloitte, while the KPMG spokesperson responded through an SMS.

Then, who valued Maytas? Satyam did not reply to an email asking the basis on which the land bank of Maytas Properties was valued at Rs 6,400 crore or Rs 1 crore per acre.

Real estate brokers said the valuation was done when the prices of land on the outskirts of Hyderabad was below Rs 10 lakh an acre due to the slump in real estate prices.

“Maytas Properties has three upcoming SEZs in Hyderabad and most are in the development phase. The firm also has properties in Nagpur, Chennai and cities in Andhra Pradesh such as Vizag. Putting these properties together, the maximum valuation could be Rs 3,500 crore.

Considering current market conditions, even this valuation may be a little extreme. But a valuation of Rs 6,240 crore is completely over the top,” a senior official with a leading property consultancy firm said.

An independent Satyam director had earlier told ET that the board relied on E&Y’s advice, something that has been denied by the audit firm. Satyam had to reverse its decision within 12 hours following protests by its investors across the world. Despite the cancellation of the Maytas transaction, the shares of Satyam crashed 33% to end at Rs 163 on the Bombay Stock Exchange on Friday.

Above news from: Economictimes

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