MUMBAI, INDIA: The new board of embattled Satyam Computer Services has asked Citigroup and BNP Paribas, the company's bankers, to help it with immediate funding needs, a top board member told the Economic Times newspaper.
"We talked to the existing bankers -- Citibank and BNP Paribas -- and requested them to understand the situation, provide additional funding and give them (Satyam) more time to repay loans," Deepak Parekh, a senior banker and a newly-appointed Satyam board member, was quoted as saying.
Satyam, India's No. 4 software services exporter, has been battling for survival since Ramalinga Raju resigned as chairman earlier this month, revealing profits had been falsified for years and that $1 billion of cash on the books did not exist.
A government-appointed board, which met on Saturday, said it was still looking for a new chief executive and chief financial officer for the outsourcing firm at the centre of India's biggest corporate scandal.
In a separate report, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was quoted as saying the Satyam scam was a risk to India's corporate image.
"It indicates how fraud and malfeasance in one company can inflict suffering on many and can also tarnish India's image more broadly," the Financial Express quoted Singh as saying at an awards function in Mumbai.
"The government is determined to unravel the full nature of of the fraud and to punish those involved under the due process."
Satyam founder Raju, his brother, who was the managing director of the company, and the former chief financial officer have been charged and are being held in a jail.
On Saturday, a Hyderabad court ordered the three to be moved into police custody for four days from Sunday for further questioning, V.S.K. Kaumudi, inspector general of police in Hyderabad, told Reuters.
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