V. Rishi Kumar

Hyderabad , Jan. 26

THE Government of Singapore and Morgan Stanley Dean Witter Mauritius are among the foreign institutional investors who have invested in the Satyam Computer Services' stock recently. This has taken the overall foreign holding in the company to 66.48 per cent during the quarter ended December 31, 2003 from 61.08 per cent during the quarter ended September 30, 2003.

While the Government of Singapore has picked up 37,70,790 shares or 1.19 per cent of total equity, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter has picked up 82,81,948 shares, amounting to about 3 per cent of the total equity of the company. This has in effect increased the total FII holdings from 59.53 per cent to 63.22 per cent for the period ended December 31, 2003.

Significantly, Warburg Pincus, which had in excess of 5 per cent plus holding during the first quarter this year, had cut down its exposure to 2.66 per cent in second quarter and has now almost exited from the stock.

While other foreign investors — Templeton Global, Merrill Lynch, AMN-Amro and Fidelity - continue to hold their stake in the Satyam stock, some of their holdings have seen marginal changes in the last quarter.

As against the total foreign shareholding of 19,37,64,208 equity shares representing 61.60 per cent of the total capital for the quarter ended September 30,2003, this number has increased to 20,99,96,354 equity shares representing 66.48 per cent of the total capital for the recent quarter.

During the company's third quarter results announcement, the Chairman of Satyam Computer Services, Mr B. Ramalinga Raju, had said that with the positive business sentiment and increased offshoring opportunities, foreign investors continued to repose faith in Indian companies. This is reflected in the fact that the market capitalisation of Satyam has gone up to about $5.4 billion in the ADS terms. The Indian systems integrators such as Satyam are among the Top 10 in the world.

It is interesting to note that while the foreign investors have increased their exposure in the Satyam stock, the promoters' stake has marginally come down from 19.24 per cent in the second quarter to 18.30 per cent in the third quarter. So is the case with mutual funds and UTI, whose stake has come down from 5.52 per cent to 5 per cent.