Date:30/07/2006 URL: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/bline/iw/2006/07/30/stories/2006073000280600.htm

Back The flurry of acquisitions

NIIT WAS among the acquiring companies. (L to R) Its CEO, Mr Vijay K. Thadani; Chairman, Mr Rajendra S Pawar; and COO, Mr P. Rajendran.

The market gyrations, the interest rate hike and the crude oil price surge notwithstanding, the deal-making spirit of Corporate India appears intact. In the past week alone, there has been a flurry of outbound acquisitions by Indian companies. Both the nature and scale of acquisitions by mid-cap firms are changing, reflecting the resilience of the economy.

Take, for instance, software education major NIIT. It recently acquired a US-based learning solutions provider Element K. Following this acquisition, NIIT will emerge one of the larger providers of learning solutions in the world. Crompton Greaves and Sasken Communications have also put through two key acquisitions to bolster their business portfolios. According to Grant Thornton, a global consulting firm, there has been no slowdown in the pace of acquisitions the past two months, especially in June, when the number of deals and the total deal size, worth nearly $3 billion, comfortably outpaced the average of the past five months. Some of the prominent outbound deals that month were announced by Aban Loyd Chiles, Ballarpur Industries and Tata Coffee, with a couple of small deals from Wipro.

Krishnan Thiagarajan