New Delhi: It’s the best of times for India Inc. After Tata’s acquisition of Corus, Kumar Mangalam Birla's flagship Hindalco acquired US-based Novellis in an all cash deal of $6 billion on Sunday.
And the buck didn’t stop at that, the long-drawn ‘bid battle’ for Hutch-Essar finally came to an end on Sunday as UK telecom giant Vodafone acquired India's fourth largest mobile venture for an estimated enterprise value of $19 billion.
So, corporate India is shining like never before and is on a spree to clinch the best deals. With the acquisition of Novellis, Hindalco hopes to establish a global integrated aluminum producer.
“We are excited about this transaction both from Hindalco and group perspectives. This catapults our group and Hindalco right on the threshold of becoming a Fortune 500 company,” Kumar Mangalam Birla said after the deal got through.
It’s been only 42 days since 2007 began and three Indian companies — Tata Steel, Hindalco and Suzlon — have committed close to $19 billion for global acquisitions.
With the acquisition of Novellis, the Birlas will have a significant impact on the developed world. Novelis is the world's largest maker of flat-rolled aluminum products used to make cars and cans. Now, India could well be making Coca Cola cans for the US market and the same can be said of the aluminium that goes into cars that companies like General Motors and Ford make.
Vodafone’s success story in India is no different. For the UK-headquartered Vodafone and its India-born CEO Arun Sarin, it was possibly the last chance to enter the Indian telecom market.
Meanwhile, sources have told CNN-IBN that Vodaphone has offered Essar to become a partner firm. The board is evaluating the option and is likely to appear with a decision shortly.
“We have been offered by Vodafone to be their partner. We are at the moment evaluating all our options in the best interest of the Group,” said Essar in a statement.
After this deal, India is all set to become the second largest mobile phone market in the world by 2008. That means India will overtake both the US and Russia and will be just behind China.
Though, Tata’s takeover of Anglo-Dutch steel giant Corus is still the largest acquisition by an Indian firm till date, the double whammy on Sunday, the Hutch-Essar and the Birla-Novellis deal, have gone on to show that there is no stopping India Inc. and the best is yet to come.
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