By IANS,
New York : Indian companies have announced as many mergers and acquisitions (M&A) abroad in the first six months of this calendar year alone as in the whole of 2006, and 57 percent more than those announced by this time last year, according to research firm Dealogic.
The value of India Inc’s 156 foreign M&A deals is $13.5 billion, more than half way to topping 2007’s total of 224 deals valued at $21.3 billion, Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday quoting figures compiled by Dealogic.
India is doing better than China in M&As, which is not doing badly either. So far this year, Chinese companies have announced 133 overseas deals. Last year they clocked 164 and topped India by $5 billion in value terms.
Indian acquirers don’t shy away from politically sensitive industries, the Journal said, giving the examples of Essar Global’s $1.65 billion purchase of Minnesota Steel in 2007, or Tata’s purchase of the Jaguar and Land Rover auto brands from Ford.
In the US alone, Indian companies this year have announced 32 deals valued at $4.6 billion, up from 23 at $2.9 billion by this time last year.
In Washington, the Indian M&A activity has not caused raised eyebrows in the Congress. What keeps these deals from becoming repeat performances of the CNOOC-Unocalor Huawei-3Com fiascos is that the Indian companies in action are mostly in the private sector.
And since most of the Indian companies involved are publicly listed, they’re open to more scrutiny than almost any big Chinese company or Middle Eastern sovereign wealth fund, the Journal commented.