Spice Group, a suitor for Satyam Computer Services , may withdraw from the race to buy the fraud-hit Indian outsourcing firm due to a lack of desired transparency in the bidding process, its chairman said on Wednesday.

We have the letter. It's not very positive, so we may be withdrawing, B.K. Modi said of Satyam's response to Spice's request to make the bidding process more transparent.

We wanted transparency, which we have not got. We don't know who the other bidders are. There is no understanding of (a) clear-cut auction process, he told Reuters by telephone.

So we have to take a decision based on that, because we don't want to get into something which we are not comfortable (with) in terms of transparency. Modi said a board meeting would be held later in the day to take a decision on Spice's participation in the Satyam bidding process.

(Reporting by Sumeet Chatterjee; Editing by John Mair)

Mahindra Satyam