Year 2007 can be called as the year of mergers and aquisitions for India. Tremendous amount of money is flowing into India on back of opening of growing economy, high liquidity levels and the continued reforms introduced by Indian government to attract foreign Investors.
Not only that, Indian corporations currently loaded with excess cash are on acquisitions spree. I have earlier written about how hot the scenario was last year, but 2007 seems to have already reached that mark in less than 6 months.
ICICI bank’s private research division has come out with a Global Investment Outlook report, which says the total equity deals struck by Indian companies have crossed 50 billion USD in 2007. In the same timeframe last year the equity deals stood at 13.5 billion USD.
These investments are also due to tightening of rules in China regarding foreign investment in Domestic Chinese firms. So many Global Investors have turned to India instead of China. The report expects the second half of 2007 to be even better than first, which should bring total investment in India to more than 100 billion USD by year end, a five fold increase over last year.
Lot of Indians living abroad are coming back and becoming entrepreneurs or investing in projects that are innovative and have lot of upside potential. The investments are not just limited to technology firms but are spreading across large spectrum of sectors.
I have put up a video yesterday on India, if you have missed watching, I suggest you do it.