New Delhi: Spice Group is ready to invest about Rs20 billion ($408 million) in Satyam Computer Services and wants to buy a 51% stake in the fraud-scarred outsourcer, Spice Chairman BK Modi said.

“That is our desire,” Modi told Reuters on Friday. “We want the money to go inside the company. For that they will have to make a preferential issue. If I buy shares from the market, the money will not go into the company.”

Modi said the group had submitted on Thursday its proposal to the government-appointed new board of Satyam.

“We have also talked to two, three board members informally.”

Spice Group has diversified operations including mobile handset manufacturing, mobile software development, back-office operations, entertainment and retail.

Last year, it sold its mobile telecoms services business to Idea Cellular for Rs21.76 billion.

“That is one of the sources (for funding). But we have other channels,” Modi said, adding that the group was capable to fund a possible deal internally. ($1=Rs49 )