The Double Life Of Ramalinga Raju

How an IT czar ran a $ 2 billion company to the ground

The story of the rise and fall of Ramalinga Raju, promoter of the blue-chip software company Satyam, has no parallel in Indian corporate history. He created a $ 2 billion company in a short period of time, only to leave it penniless. At the heart of the scandal lay the IT baron's craving for land (his family's traditional business). To satisfy it, Raju pawned his shareholding in Satyam as well as in his real estate company, Maytas Infra, and allegedly siphoned off funds from both companies. In an elaborate cover up, Raju also fudged Satyam's books to inflate its revenues and profits, to increase the value of its shares. Raju was able to do this for eight years — until the recession hit in 2008 and the bubble blew in his face.

Having come into the It industry by accident—he was not a technology professional himself—Raju became the toast of Hyderabad as he built a company spread across sixty-six countries in five continents. Close to the powerful and the rich, Raju also created a parallel real estate empire, going on to successfully bid for the Hyderabad metro rail project, the one act that brougght his house of cards crashing down.

How did Raju amass his IT and real estate empires? How could he hoodwink the law, the shareholders and his employees for so long? This unputdownable fly-on-the-wall narrative, written with incisive depth by Kingshuk Nag, resident editor of the Hyderabad edition of The Times of India, capttures the dramatic story of Raju's life.