Shares of India's Satyam surge 60%
Stock climbs as new government-appointed board prepares to select new chief operating officer.
NEW DELHI, India (CNN) -- Shares of Satyam Computers Services Ltd., the Hyderabad-based company at the center of a massive corporate fraud case, surged Monday on news that the new government-appointed board will pick a new chief operating officer.
The new board of directors will also decide at a Monday meeting the embattled company's next course of action, said spokeswoman Deepa Jayaraman.
The company's stock plummeted more than 70% after its chairman admitted last week of inflating profits with "fictitious" assets and non-existent cash. On Monday morning, the stock rose close to 60%.
The chairman, B. Ramalinga Raju, his brother -- a former managing director -- and Satyam's chief financial officer face numerous charges, including criminal conspiracy.
The company is India's fourth-largest software-services provider. It serves almost 700 companies, including 185 Fortune 500 companies, and generates more than half its revenues from the United States. It employs some 53,000 people and operates in 65 countries.
Raju resigned Wednesday and confessed to padding company balance sheets. The practice began several years ago to close "a marginal gap" between actual operating profit and one reflected in the company's accounting books, he said, but continued for several years.
The deception came to light after he tried to plug the hole by getting Satyam to buy his son's construction companies. The acquisition was "the last attempt to fill the fictitious assets with real ones," he wrote in his letter.
The deal would have cost Satyam $1.6 billion -- but the company's board vetoed it. Stocks fell following the botched deal. Soon afterward, Raju came clean, saying he was doing so "with deep regret, and tremendous burden that I am carrying on my conscience."
The government stepped in and tapped leaders from three fields -- technology, finance and law -- to form the three-member board of directors.
"This is a vital stabilizing development for Satyam," the company said in a news release. "It is the best news we've received in the past few weeks."
-- CNN's Bharati Naik contributed to this report. 
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