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PSU banks logged on to Cyberspace before UTI

BS Bureaus

Much before Unit Trust of India put money into Cyberspace in July 2000, nationalised banks had a substantial exposure to the company. According to CMIE data, as on December 27, 1999, nationalised banks held 961,000 shares, translating into a 16.7 per cent stake, in Cyberspace.

On that date, no financial institutions, state finance corporation, insurance company and mutual fund including UTI held even a single share in Cyberspace. But, in a few short months, not only UTI but also two public sector mutual funds- LIC Mutual Fund and GIC Mutual Fund- as well as Reliance Capital had picked up large chunks of the company's share capital through a preferential allotment. As on January 31, 2001, GIC Growth Plus had deployed 9.38 per cent of its assets in Cyberspace, the exposure being next only to Infosys.

Cyberspace has been in the eye of a storm lately for UTI putting money into the company against the advice of its investment committee.

The Central Bureau of Investigation is looking into the matter. It also transpires that LIC Mutual Fund actually booked a profit on its investments in Cyberspace. While the mutual fund bought 77,000 shares at Rs 880.55 apiece between December 1999 and March 2000 resulting in an investment of Rs 68 million, it sold 76,800 shares at an average price of Rs 948.24 resulting in an income of Rs 73 million, thereby booking a profit of Rs 5 million. Reliance Mutual Fund is also known to have offloaded the stock at a profit.

Meanwhile, more trouble is brewing for Cyberspace. Companies like IBM and Lotus are reviewing their relationship with it. According to an IBM India spokesperson: "IBM had an agreement with Cyberspace for the distribution of Tivoli range of products in India. Now, with the company's operations becoming defunct, we are in the process of reviewing the agreement with Cyberspace with the aim of terminating it."

Similarly Lotus, for which Cyberspace was managing the national support centre, is also working towards terminating its service agreement with Cyberspace.

"We are in the process of terminating our agreement with Cyberspace," a company spokesperson said.

Cyberspace was operating in areas such as IT consultancy and system integration, end to end business solutions, e-commerce, consultancy and project implementation in ERP and CRM. It had managed projects like the end-to-end web-based solutions for Swisspost, done portal development work for Indiainfoline, devised a messaging system development for the government of Maharashtra and done portal development work for Accenture.

The Delhi office of Cyberspace was searched and sealed by CBI on April 20.

Cyberspace established in 1984 employed about 130 software professional in the beginning of the year 2000. The company went public in 1994 when it had raised about Rs 30 million. On Wednesday, the company scrip closed at Rs 1.50 at the Bombay Stock Exchange.

The company had clocked revenues to the tune of Rs 39 million during 1999-2000 with exports contributing about Rs 100 million. The company had projected revenue of Rs 1.20 billion for the year 2000-01 with exports contributing about 50 per cent of it.

The company had also acquired UII Corporation of the US in a $6.23 million cash and stock deal. As per the deal with the $9.5 million software services and consultancy firm, Cyberspace was to offer 30 per cent of the consideration in cash and the remaining in stock.

KPMG, which carried out the complete due diligence on behalf of Cyberspace, conducted the deal.

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