Nortel owes over $10 mn to Indian IT cos

Nortel Networks, the Canadian telecom equipment maker which filed for bankruptcy protection on Wednesday, owes $9 million to Indian IT companies such as Wipro ($3.1 million), Infosys and TCS (both $2.9 million) as per court filings. Additionally, Nortel, which is amongst the top 3 clients for tier-II software services firm-Sasken Communication, is said to owe an undisclosed amount to Sasken too. Put together, this could amount to over $10 million as trade receivables. Nortel and more than a dozen various affiliates filed for bankruptcy protection and has been trying to restructure for more than three years. With this, Nortel becomes the first major North American technology company to be forced into bankruptcy protection due to the downturn. Nortel has more than $1 billion of both assets and liabilities. Mirroring the concerns related to Nortel, stocks of Infosys, TCS and Wipro slumped by 3-5% on the bourses but Sasken lost a whopping 19%. Investors in these four counters cumulatively lost wealth amounting to over Rs 7,000 crore in a single session, data from stock exchanges indicate.