Tag: mergers and acquisitions

While dealmaking elsewhere in the world slows to a crawl bankers in India recorded their best-ever quarter for mergers and acquisitions. India saw $82.3 billion pending and completed M&A deals in the second quarter, the highest amount on record, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That’s more than twice as much as the previous record of $38.1 billion in the third quarter of 2019. Globally, M&A volume in the quarter reached $827.6 billion, down 8.7% from the same period in 2021. The surge in India was dominated by HDFC Bank Ltd.’s $60 billion all-stock purchase of Housing Development Finance Corp. in April, combining India’s most valuable bank and largest mortgage lender in the country’s biggest-ever M&A transaction. The move illustrated how India’s flagship companies, facing disruptive trends such as the rise of fintech and climate change, are turning to dealmaking as a tactic to dramatically reshape themselves. Read more

Indian conglomerates bought and sold companies in record-breaking deals despite a majority of smaller firms ending the year on a dull note. Many corporate India is ending 2020 with battered sales and profits due to the pandemic while a few top companies saw a phenomenal rise in their market valuation. The year 2020 will be remembered for the billions of dollars’ worth of investments reported by Reliance Industries by selling a stake in its telecom services arm, Jio Platforms. As soon as the Mukesh Ambani-led firm stopped selling stakes in Jio, global investors queued up to invest in its organised retail arm, making the company virtually debt-free. Backed by billions of dollars of investments from marque global investors, Ambani then acquired Future group’s entire retail and wholesale business for Rs 25,000 crore, giving the group a significant lead in organised retail. Read more

The top four Indian IT firms have a cash reserve of close to $15 billion. Market leader Tata Consultancy Services has around $5.9 billion, while it is around $3.6 billion for Infosys. Wipro is sitting on close to $3.4 billion, while HCL Technologies has $1.75 billion. As growth slows owing to the pandemic, these cash-rich tier-I IT services companies are pursuing organic growth, including acquisition, indicating a change in capital allocation policies. Apart from mergers and acquisitions (M&As), even large rebadging deals (outsourcing work while reducing employee strength) and buying out captives of global firms are part of these initiatives. This is being done to drive revenue growth at a time most firms posted a revenue decline in sequential terms in Q1 of FY21, which is traditionally considered to be a strong quarter for IT services companies. Read more