By Janaki Krishnan
MUMBAI (Reuters) - Shares in fraud-scarred Satyam Computer Services Ltd jumped more than 28 percent on Tuesday after engineer Larsen & Toubro said it may raise its stake in the outsourcing firm beyond 12 percent.
"We don't rule out moving from 12 to 15 percent," L&T Chairman A.M. Naik told an analysts call, adding it would first wait for more clarity on Satyam's financial position.
Larsen & Toubro, India's biggest engineering and construction firm, valued at around $7.7 billion, trebled its Satyam stake on Friday after speaking to some of the software services exporter's customers and on hopes the government would help rescue the firm, Naik said.
Satyam has been struggling for survival since Jan. 7 when founder Ramalinga Raju resigned as chairman revealing profits had been overstated for years and $1 billion in cash on the books did not exist.
"I have been in touch with every single leader you can think of in this whole transaction ... at the board that exists now, at the government level ... because this company is under very close monitoring by the government," Naik said.
"We have got a good report on Satyam's services," he added. "We have been constantly encouraged by the government that this is the company they would like to save."
Satyam's six-member board, appointed by the government after the country's largest corporate fraud, was meeting in the southern city of Hyderabad to discuss L&T's expanded stake, how to secure funding to pay salaries and bills, and a shortlist for the posts of chief executive and chief financial officer.
L&T had previously held a 4 percent stake in Satyam -- whose global clients include General Electric, Nestle and Caterpillar Inc -- before Raju's stunning revelations of years of accounting fraud.
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