Economic Value Added Reporting and Corporate Performance: A Study of Satyam Computer Services Ltd.

EVA (Economic Value Added) better measures the wealth created by a firm during a period, than does traditional accounting earnings, by explicitly assigning a cost of equity capital and removing the distortions of accounting conventions. The fundamental premise of capitalism is that companies are expected to take financial capital from shareholders and make it worth more. ‘Maximizing shareholder value’ is a popular refrain in the corporate world today. In India, only a few companies like HLL, Infosys Tech. Ltd., Satyam Computers Ltd., Hero Honda etc., go about measuring their shareholder value, although they don’t calculate it scientifically. Satyam Computer Services Ltd., is among the best in the world in terms of market value added (wealth creation) per unit of capital employed, as per third BT-Stern Stewart study. The present study is an attempt to analyze and compare the EVA statement as disclosed by Satyam Computer Services Ltd., and the actual EVA created by it after considering all the adjustments given by Stern Stewart & Company, the founder of EVA concept. In addition, the study also compares the financial performance of Satyam as depicted by the traditional performance parameters like ROCE, RONW, EPS, Growth in EPS, with the new value-based performance measure called EVA. The study concludes that traditional measures do not reflect the real value of shareholders wealth and thus EVA has to be measured scientifically to have a real idea about shareholders value.