Satyam's Raju put in Forbes '2009 Hall of Shame'

New York, Nov 26 : The Forbes, best known for its rankings of the richest and the most powerful the world over, has put Ramalinga Raju, the founder-chairman of Satyam Computers (now Mahindra Satyam), fourth among the "world's 10 most outrageous CEOs".

Giving Raju company in what the US business magazine called "This year's C-Suite Hall of Shame", are Sri Lankan-origin American hedge fund manager Raj Rajarathnam (third), former Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain (second) and Goldman Sachs' Lloyd Blankfein (first).

Raju, the only Indian on the list dominated by Americans, owes his place on the list to his disclosure in January about committing the country's biggest ever corporate fraud.

Raju, said the magazine, "was living in his own fantasy world. The founder of the Indian outsourcing company Satyam Computer Services, he confessed in January to overstating Satyam's profits over several years and creating a fictitious cash balance of more than $1 billion."

"He invented more than 10,000 fictitious employees to help him steal money from the company, and he used his mother's name to buy land with the proceeds. He confessed, but has yet to face charges in court," it noted.

The police arrested Raju, his co-founder and brother, B. Rama Raju, and former CFO Srinivas Vadlamani on charges of cheating, forgery and breach of trust.

Forbes said the investigators have now found the fraud to be "much worse than expected after they discovered another $1.25 billion beyond what was already known".

Raju on this list is followed by American businessman Thomas Petters (fifth), who went on trial in October for allegedly orchestrating a $3.5-billion fraud.

The magazine said about a year ago Bernard Madoff "raised the bar for corporate malfeasance to an all-time high when he was arrested on charges of orchestrating a $50-billion Ponzi scheme".

"Obviously, nobody managed to top Madoff's crimes in 2009, but 10 executives showed enough greed, hubris and chutzpah to altogether give him a run for his (stolen) money," it said about the list.

Those on the list include AIG's former CEO Edward M. Liddy, who faced a nationwide firestorm when it emerged that $165-million in retention bonuses were being paid to the executives, at the sixth position.

At the seventh position is Danny Pang, founder and the then chief executive of Private Equity Management Group, who was arrested in April on charges of structuring cash transactions so that he wouldn't have to report them to the government.

In April, the SEC of the US accused Pang of running a Ponzi scheme that defrauded his investors of hundreds of millions of dollars. Pang died in September at age 42, before he could stand trial. A report is expected by January to say whether he committed suicide.