acquisition

By now you must have probably heard that Reliance Industries has decided to acquire LyondellBasell also known as the world’s  third largest manufacturer of chemicals.It is refreshing to talk about Reliance in a context which does not involve the battle of the Ambani brothers in the Supreme Court and news of an acquisition interest like this is a guaranteed news maker. Reliance has offered Ten billion dollars to buy LyondellBasell and it is doing so in style. An all cash deal-no fuss, no tangle. With the pile of cash Reliance is sitting on it’s no wonder that Mukesh Ambani finds himself the richest Indian in the world even past steel Czar Lakshmi Mittal in the Forbes List of Indian Billionaires.

One simply can’t seem to keep the Ranbaxy brothers out of the news. Malvinder has been in the news for negotiating the Ranbaxy sale to Daiichi-Sankyo and more recently for being ousted as the CEO of Ranbaxy thanks to a whole bunch of problems from falling stock prices to hassles with the United States Food and Drug Administration. The recent news of the Ranbaxy brothers acquiring ten hospitals of Wockhardt for an estimated sum of 910 Crore rupees is a definite piece of good news.

In fact it’s the best piece of news which has come the way of the Ranbaxy brothers in the recent months and from an investor point of view, the Fortis stock is looking extremely attractive as a long term investment.

The Satyam story is slowly winding through the last few stages. In an interview a few weeks ago Deepak Parekh had stated that in a few weeks time the Satyam fiasco would be resolved. It seems that his words which some time back were seen as ‘premature‘ and ‘irrational’ are slowly coming to fruit. A company which was viewed as a failure the moment its ex-chairman dropped his infamous bombshell has battled bravely thanks to some great leadership by the likes of Deepak Parekh and Kiran Karnik. The stage has now arrived where the company will be sold off to a potential suitor soon.

Nobody takes shareholders for a ride – that’s the message that’s gone out loud and clear to the owners and promoters of Satyam Computers, one of India’s biggest and formidable IT companies. A corporate fiasco that began as little as a day ago has ended abruptly with the Board of Satyam throwing in the towel against a vastly growing majority of their own shareholders.Satyam’s decision to acquire Maytas Infra Limited was a very difficult decision to swallow for the shareholders. Questions were asked about the need of the acquisition. More importantly, how exactly was the company justified in spending a lot of money on a family owned company?

Health and personal care giant Dabur sprung a surprise at the beginning of the past weekend when they announced that they were going to buy a seventy percent stake in emerging Pharma Company Fem Care. What has been even more surprising is the price tag for Fem. A very formidable price of nearly Two Hundred and Four Crore Rupees will be shelled out by the health care major. There is however no reason for any shareholder to panic because this acquisition is expected to strengthen the company and make it more profitable in the coming years.

What was till a few weeks ago a very slim chance has now turned into a big challenge for the people at Infosys. Rival IT Company HCL Technologies announced over the weekend that they too are interested in acquiring UK based company Axon and have made an official bid to buy the company at a price higher than the one offered by Infosys. A few weeks ago we stated that the deal between Infosys and Axon was more or less a done deal but the people at Axon have changed plans midway upon hearing of HCL’s offer.

In what is an unprecedented development for Indian corporations and world film production a historic and possibly ground breaking deal between Anil Ambani’s Reliance Group and Steven Spielberg’s DreamWorks studio has now been completed. What makes this deal all the more important for India Inc. is the fact that it paves the way for similar Indian business houses to aggressively pursue film and entertainment avenues in addition to the IT, Manufacturing and conventional companies Indian businesses have always been known to be interested in.

So if you happen to encounter an Indian character in DreamWorks’ Shrek films in future, don’t be surprised!

The Indian acquisition story has made yet another interesting turn. After Infosys and ONGC we are now looking at two significant buys by another Indian company. News that the Anil Dhirubai Ambani wing of Reliance’s formidable fleet has set its sights on ace director Steven Spielberg’s 2.4 Billion Dollar movie company Dreamworks has been around for the past few weeks. But a recent story that the group is also interested in buying the English football club Newcastle United indicates that the younger Ambani has no qualms about entering into unchartered territories.

A day after Infosys announced that they had agreed to buy out UK based Axon Group for what will go down as the biggest deal in the history of Indian IT services, the foreign arm of India’s largest oil corporation ONGC (Oil And Natural Gas Corporation) ONGC VIDESH did one better by announcing that they had agreed to purchase another UK based company : Imperial Energy .This deal when done will be the biggest deal in the history of  Indian oil companies and is a sure sign that India Inc. is firmly looking to make good buys in the European markets.

The biggest acquisition in the history of Indian IT services has taken place and is expected to be completed fully by the month of November. Indian IT services giant and one of the market leaders Infosys has announced that it will be acquiring the UK based Axon group. Particulars include Infosys going in for the buy with an aggressive all-cash buyout. They will be paying around 600 pence per share which is almost 100 pence more than Axon’s current market value as of today.

This amounts to a total of almost Seven Hundred and Fifty Five Million Dollars.

For Infosys to make a major decision like this and buy a very strong company like Axon in the current economic situation is a bold and confident move. Therefore expect heightened investor confidence in the company and notable trading in the stock over a short term period.