By: Ashish Razdan

THE HUNTED BECAME HUNTERS in 2010.

In year 2010, Indian economy saw a burst in outbound mergers & acquisitions. We can say that the year 2010 was the year of M&A.
The biggest outbound transaction was Airtel

$10.7 billion acquisition of Zain Africa. The total M&A transactions value in year 2010 was close to the $50 billion mark across 623 small & big transactions.

 According to Nikhil Nath, Managing

Director & Head, M&A, Asia The outbound action in 2011 will be much higher than the previous year. In March 2010, ESSAR acquire US-based Trinity Coal for $ 600 million to feed its steel units in America. In December, Lanco acquire Griffin Coal Mining in Australia and RIL acquire equity interest in three shale gas assets in US.

 This hunger is all because of the easier

availability of the finance and with is expected to grow more in year 2011. Sanjeev Krishan, Exe. Director, Transaction Group at Pricewaterhouse Coopers says that Oil & Gas, Industrial Products, Power, Mining and Minerals sectors would be extremely active and would be headed towards regions like Africa, Indonesia, and Australia in the quest for natural resources.

 On the domestic M&A front, 2010 was again a

significant year. Pharmaceuticals would again be the focus here along with telecom and banking. On the other hand, banking and pharma offer ample scope because of their fragmented nature and huge number of players at the bottom of the pyramid. Telecom, on the other, is expected to see hectic activity because of the contention that India is not in a position to handle 10-12 players effectively.

 Mr. Uday Disely, founder and partner, Viedea capital Advisors, believes that the Education and It enables services will rule the rest. He says that Education would see a lot of consolidation. E-commerce would see inbound activity because of confident sentiment fuelled by the companies like Ebay and Groupon

making small but effective acquisitions. He believes that inorganic growth backed by funds raising capabilities would keep the midcap segment as active as it was last year.

 But nothing is perfect, there are some negative of

everything. Because of increase in M&A we saw many scams that rocked the country, especially the one in the telecom sector (2G Scam). These scam negatively impact the M&A sentiments in various sectors.
Ranjan Biswas, E & Ys Partner and National Director

says that If and when the dust settles down on the current telecom controversy, consolidation activity is expected to take place in telecom, specially infrastructure and equipment. For that regulatory framework needs to get more transparent.

in the end we can say that the year 2010 was full of surprises in case of M&A and it is possible that this will continue in year 2011.

So,

1. What do you think what is the biggest advantage and disadvantage of M&A? 2. What can be done to make the M&A activity more transparent to prevent it from many problems? 3. According to you which sectors can saw more M&A in year 2011?

THANK YOU