Monday, February 12, 2007

Mergers and Acquistions


Recently we come across the major deals happening ... India Inc. has been going great guns thanks to huge deals taking place recently . 2006 had mergers worth close to a few million dollars. Come 2007 , the feather of India Inc , TATAs made a giant leap in Indian acquistions . Worth Over 19 billion dollars, they took over CORUS over a stiff competion. They had increased the offer price close to 60 Percent over their initial bid to come through the bid successfully . This certainly is one of the major milestones in Indian history. Not that its because of the TATA brand. Its about the size of the deal and the sector of the acquistion. Prior to this India was more considered to be the back office support of the service industry . Come in the acquistion, India Inc is in the foray among the best in world manufacturing . It catapulted Tatas frm abt 50s in steel sector to No.5 which is quite a huge jump. All this has been happening with with so much hue and media attention, here comes another man by name Kumaramangalam Birla , silently took over Novelis.
Novelis is an aluminium company based out of Canada and Hindalco is the flagship of the famous Aditya Birla group. The deal is valued at abt 6 Billion dollars and is an all Cash deal .Kumaramangalam envisaged that his flagship should enter the fortune 500 by 2010. This deal has made the group to sail through the fortune list easily. Seems kumar's hunger is not satisfied . Reports say he is set to prowl on acquiring foreign cement companies.
This acquistions and mergers is not over. Suzlon is hawking at a few energy companies in Europe. Great guys , Indians fighting gloablly and making mark . A couple of years back when Oracle took over Peoplesoft its closest competitor amongst a lot of hue cry and litigations, we knew it was consolidation time for industries .
Now I see the the big Indian guns, Tatas and Birlas not afraid of hunting in foreign grounds and making a mark globally and making Indians proud.

Some time back I happened to see a movie by name "We are not Tata Birlas " ..I think I would make a movie.." We should be Tatas Birla"...
Think Big guys ..We should atleast dream big even if we dont acheive it .

Madhu

Sunday, February 04, 2007

2 Extra dosais

This happened to me when I was in the first semester of MCA. We just finished what I would call the toughest practical examinations in my life. Ask my MCA classmates, they would agree that the first semester electronics lab exam was more a theory exam than a practical exam. Myself , Maha and Kums were the 3 lucky people who got the kind of qn which one would have never expected. All the 3 of us were fuming when the exam was finally over. It was not that the qn was tuf but it was monotonous and it cudnt have been completed in 3 hrs by anyone and there were not enuf chips in our labs to execute the circuit.
I was dead tired and frustrated with the exam and walked after a long 3 hour exam . I was hungry . I wanted to eat as much as possible and walked to one of the best restraunts in TPK . As I was walking towards the restraunt, KK another calssmate joined me . He wanted to know how the exam was and I had to narrate him the whole story and that I was going to have my fill. He wanted to join me and we started walking.
We were close to the bus stop as Muthu another of my classmate was walking and he was also interested to join us for the snack. We were all hungry and went to a small restraunt near the TPK temple to have our fill.
Each one of us were hungry and were ordering gulping the snacks as if we hadnt seen those food items at all. Each finished our idlies and next came the set dosais , gulped a few chapatis and finally the coffee to refresh ourselves.. Each of were full and could not have anything more for the rest of the day.
"Bill Please", said Muthu. The waiter gave the bill and the bill was Rs.82 .I was having Rs 50 and asked KK to pay the rest.I was always of the opinion that as my classmates joined me one by one they would be having enuf cash with them. Now KK didnt have money nor did Muthu. KK and Muthu were thinking that others wud be having enuf cash to pay out the bill. Each of us were looking at each other's face not knowing know this embarassing situation. The waiter was walking up and down around us with accusing look.
Luckily for us Muthu's house was close to the restraunt and he said that he would get the money. 5 mins passed after Muthu left , myself andKK were in unknown waters. KK hit an idea . He called up the waiter and ordered for another 2 dosais for each of us.I was confused and got his idea. KKs idea was simple. By the time Muthu came back, we would slowly munch the extra dosais so that the owner didnt think bad of us . But then we were already full . Still , we slowly munched the extra dosais and thank God by the time we finished the extra dosais, Muthu came back with enuf cash frm his house.
If Muthu had not been in time this blog would have been 10 extra dosais . Myself and KK would have gone in an infinite loop for sure. What say KK ?

Madhu
- Dosai eater