It's very, very amazing: "Tata Steel makes Corus offer" to acquire its steel plant(s) at a whopping (indicative) valuation of anywhere above $ 8 bn. And, if the deal comes through, it would be five times bigger than the biggest overseas acquisition to date, executed by Oil & Natural Gas Corporation.
What a transformation! Till yesterday India Inc. was quite content to stay at home-in a market which is pretty insulated from foreign competition-and make money. Surprisingly, it has today embarked on an acquisition spree of overseas businesses.
The pioneer champion of this overseas acquisition marathon is none other than Ratan Tata, the unassuming Chairman of Tata Group of Companies. It is Ratan Tata who is the first to foresee the immense potential in acquiring overseas firms to boost growth. Their saga of acquiring overseas corporates started way back in 2000 when Tata Tea acquired Tetley, UK for $407 mn. This was followed by the acquisition of Daewoo, commercial vehicle company of South Korea, by Tata Motors for $102 mn in 2004; Natsteel of Singapore by Tata Steel for $286 mn in 2004; Teleglobe International Holdings by VSNL for $239 mn in 2005; Financial Network Services of Sydney by TCS for $26 mn in 2005; Brunner Mond Group Limited of UK for $120 mn by Tata Chemicals in 2006; 8 O'clock Coffee of US for $220 mn by Tata Coffee in 2006; 30% stake in Glaceau of US for $677 mn by Tata Tea and Tata Sons and now it is the turn of Corus-the Anglo-Dutch steel maker.
Joining Tatas in this spree are Dr. Reddy's Laboratories-a generic drug maker from Hyderabad who acquired its German rival Betapharm for $572 mn; Ranbaxy acquiring Terapia for 324 million; Suzlon Energy-makers of wind turbines-acquiring Belgium's Eve holdings for $548 mn; Videocon acquiring South Korea's Daewoo Electronics for $700 mn in association with the US Ripple Wood; Wipro Technologies acquiring IT companies in Finland, Portugal and the US etc. |
