L&T Infotech, a wholly-owned subsidiary of engineering major L&T, a front-runner for acquiring Satyam Computer Services, has for the second time deferred the joining time of its nearly 1,000 campus hires to the third quarter of 2009. The company also advised the recruits to look for other options, citing `global economic downturn? that affected the IT sector.

L&T has been candid about its intent of taking over the troubled IT firm, Satyam, to become a bigger player in the IT field. While company officials are mum about the deferral, analysts see the move as strategic, as L&T wants to make a commitment to the new hires only after the Satyam issue is settled.

In fact, the communication sent by the company to the campus hires, a copy of which is with FE, states, ?In these circumstances (economic downturn), we have decided to add people in line with the evolving situation?.the communication is intended to apprise you of the current situation and help you plan career moves and select any alternative career paths.?

While L&T Infotech has close to 10,000 employees, Satyam has nearly 53,000 people on its rolls. According to the annual report, L&T had recruited over 1,000 engineers during FY2008 from 300 engineering colleges. However, it is not clear how many of them have been taken in. An email questionnaire to L&T Infotech enquiring about the delay and its reasons remained unanswered for several days.

AM Naik, chairman & managing director of L&T, which has 12% stake in Satyam, has been citing several synergies between the businesses of L&T Infotech and Satyam. According to market experts, both the companies are strong in the applications space and in integration of software like SAP and Oracle.

?In the event of a possible acquisition of Satyam by L&T, there are high chances that there will be a lot of duplication of roles since both companies offer very complimentary services. The options then will either be to ask a few people to leave or carry out a restructuring exercise where people are migrated to different roles,? said an industry analyst with a global consultancy who did not wish to be named.

In a conference call with analysts explaining the rationale behind the stake purchase, Naik had said ?L&T acquired a strategic 4% stake prior to disclosure by Satyam’s promoters that the accounts had been falsified. This investment was made for forging a possible strategic alliance with Satyam mainly from the point of view of ?going to the market? considering the overlap and complementarities in customers and skill sets.?

According to the second quarter results of Satyam for the financial year 2008-09, the company?s revenues from application development and maintenance service was 45.07% of its total turnover while consulting and enterprise business solutions made up for 44.46%. L&T Infotech too counts application maintenance and development, enterprise resource planning and specialized services like data warehousing and business intelligence as its strengths.

L&T Infotech achieved total revenues of Rs 1,581.68 crore in 2007-2008 while its profit after tax was at Rs 211.13 crore.