M&A India

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RIS DP# 5-2000
Multinational Enterprises and M&As in India:
Patterns and Implications
Nagesh Kumar
Version: 1.1
June 2000
Published in
Economic and Political Weekly, 35, 5 August 2000: 2851-8
Research and Information System for Non-aligned and other Developing Countries,
Zone 4B, Fourth Floor, India Habitat Centre, Lodi Road, New Delhi-11003, India
Phone: 468 2175; Fax: 468 2173;
email: nagesh@del6.vsnl.net.in
This paper is a part of a larger ongoing work on investment and competition policy at
the Research and Information System for Developing Countries, New Delhi. An
earlier version was presented at the Workshop on Cross-border M&As and Sustained
Competitiveness in Asia organized by UNCTAD in Bangkok on 9-10 March 2000. I
have benefited from discussions with Dr V.R. Panchamukhi and from the comments
of participants. Dr. P.L. Beena helped in preparation of the dataset for this paper. The
usual disclaimer applies.
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Multinational Enterprises and M&As in India:
Patterns and Implications
1. Introduction
Mergers and acquisitions (M&As) have become increasingly important channels of
cross-border industrial restructuring and foreign direct investment all over the world.
In India, the policy liberalization in the 1990s has facilitated M&As including crossborder
M&As. As a result, the M&A activity has boomed over the past few years. In
contrast to nearly all of FDI inflows destined to India taking the form of greenfield
projects until early 1990s, a substantial proportion of current FDI inflows takes place
in the form of acquisition of existing enterprises in the country. The developmental
implications of this trend need to be examined and analyzed.
This paper makes an exploratory attempt to map out the recent M&A activity in the
Indian corporate sector associated with foreign MNEs and their Indian affiliates. That
is attempted with the help of an exclusive database built-up by us that covers most of
the deals associated with MNEs in...