Mahindra Satyam says not losing clients

IT services firm Mahindra Satyam said customer attrition has stopped and it is not offering price cuts to win new deals, a company executive said.

"We inherited 380 customers and we have not lost any. We have added about 36, so we have about 420 (as of now)," Atul Kunwar, president, global operations, said at the Reuters India Investment Summit held in Bangalore.

Mahindra Satyam, which counts General Electric Co, Cisco Systems and GlaxoSmithKline Plc among its clients, has renewed over 50 deals in the last three months.

"A lot of these are multi-year deals," Kunwar said.

The company, earlier known as Satyam Computer Services, was acquired in April by Tech Mahindra, a unit of tractor and utility vehicle maker Mahindra & Mahindra, after being hit by India's biggest corporate scandal.

Kunwar said the company is not seeing any payment delays.

"In fact, the customers are being overly good to us. No payments are being held up," Kunwar said.

Mahindra Satyam, which is in talks with the World Bank to lift a ban, said it is hopeful of completing the restatement of its accounts by June 2010.

In December last year, Satyam Computer Services was barred from business with the World Bank for eight years.

The firm currently has 35,000 employees, including the virtual pool.

Shares in Mahindra Satyam were trading down more than 7 per cent at 94.25 rupees in the main Mumbai market that was up 0.7 per cent.