MEGA MERGERS AND ACQUISITIONS FOR THE DECADE

World Inc witnessed mergers and acquisitions across a wide range of sectors, ranging from banking, pharma, steel and auto. Indian companies expanded their global reach and outbid some of the global corporates in their acquisition battle. Notable among the acquisitions were the ones done by the Tata Group - the acquisition of Corus and Jaguar and Land Rover. A sneek peek into some of the mega mergers and acquisitions that took place in India and abroad.

Stanchart-Grindlays Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd (ANZ) sold its Grindlays unit to Britain's Standard Chartered Plc for $1.34 billion in cash.

Reliance Comm-Flag Telecom Reliance Communications acquired 100 per cent equity in Nasdaq-listed Flag Telecom Group Ltd for about Rs 1,000 crore.

Arcelor-Mittal Steel Arcelor Mittal became the world's largest steel company with the merger of Arcelor and Mittal Steel during the year 2006. ArcelorMittal, owned by Lakhsmi Mittal, is listed on the stock exchanges of New York, Amsterdam, Paris, Brussels, Luxembourg and on the Spanish stock exchanges of Barcelona, Bilbao, Madrid and Valencia.

Tata Steel-Corus Tata Steel completed its $12 billion acquisition of Corus Group at a price of 608 pence per ordinary share in cash. Established in 1907, Tata Steel is Asia’s first and India’s largest integrated private sector steel company.

Image: Chairman of the Tata group and Tata Steel, Ratan Tata (L), CEO of UK-Dutch steel giant Corus, Phillip Varrin, (2L), Chairman of the Corus group, Jim Leng (C), managing director of Tata Steel, B Muthuraman (2R) and President of the Tata Workers' Union, Raghunath Pandey join hands at Jubilee Park in Jamshedpur

Hindalco-Novelis Aditya Birla Group's Hindalco Industries, India's largest non-ferrous metals company, and Novelis Inc, the world's leading producer of aluminium rolled products, entered into a definitive agreement for Hindalco to acquire Novelis in an all-cash transaction which values Novelis at approximately US$6 billion.

Vodafone-Hutch British telecom giant Vodafone bagged the 67% Hutch Telecom International stake in Hutch-Essar at an enterprise value of $19.3 billion. Vodafone emerged as the top bidder for majority stake in India's fourth largest mobile player Hutch-Essar, pipping Anil Ambani Group's Reliance Communications, a consortium led by Hindujas, and Essar.

Suzlon-REpower Suzlon Energy acquired 75% equity of German wind power company REpower for nearly Rs 7,314 crore. Suzlon is the largest wind turbine manufacturer in Asia and the third largest worldwide.

United Breweries-Whyte & Mackay Vijay Mallya-promoted United Spirits acquired Scottish whiskey maker Whyte & Mackay for Rs 4,819 crore. With this acquisition, United Breweries has access to global distribution and exporting brands from India.

HDFC Bank-Centurion Bank of Punjab HDFC Bank approved the acquisition of Centurion Bank of Punjab for Rs 9,510 crore in one of the largest merger in the financial sector in India. Post-acquisition, Centurion Bank of Punjab merged with HDFC Bank.

Tata Motors-JLR Tata Motors Ltd, India's top vehicle maker, completed the $2.3 billion acquisition of the Jaguar and Land Rover brands from Ford Motor Co. The all-cash deal, which was agreed in March, includes all necessary intellectual property rights, manufacturing plants, two advanced design centres in the UK and a worldwide network of sales companies.

ONGC-Imperial Energy ONGC Videsh Ltd, the overseas investment arm of ONGC, agreed to acquire LSE-listed Imperial Energy Corporation plc for about Rs 11,400 crore. ONGC is one of Asia's largest and most active companies involved in exploration and production of oil.

Sterlite-Asarco Sterlite-Asarco deal is India's 10th biggest M&A ever. Sterlite entered into a pact with Asarco to acquire the company at a consideration of $1.7 billion.

NTT DoCoMo-Tata Tele Japanese telecom giant NTT DoCoMo picks up a 26 per cent equity stake in Tata Teleservices for about Rs 13,070 crore ($2.7 billion) or an enterprise value of Rs 50,269 crore ($10.38 billion).

Pfizer-Wyeth Drugmaker Pfizer Inc would acquire US rival Wyeth for about $68 billion in a move to diversify its revenue base. The world’s largest drugmaker raised $22.5 billion in debt from a consortium of banks to finance the deal. Image: Jeffrey B. Kindler, CEO of Pfizer (L) and Bernard Poussot, CEO of Wyeth, appear at a news conference discussing the planned merger of their companies January 26, 2009 in New York City

Reliance-RPL merger Mukesh Ambani-promoted Reliance Industries merged its group firm Reliance Petroleum with itself. Reliance-RPL merger ratio was at 1:16

Tech Mahindra-Satyam Tech Mahindra, an M&M-promoted company, won the bid for Satyam Computer after bidding at Rs 58 per share. Tech Mahindra would pay Rs1,757 crore for a 31 per cent stake in scam-hit Satyam.

Oracle-Sun Microsystems Oracle acquired Sun's common stock for $9.50 per share in cash. The transaction is valued at approximately $7.4 billion, or $5.6 billion net of Sun’s cash and debt. After Microsoft and IBM, Oracle is the third-largest software company in terms of revenues.