GE in acquisition mode

Eyes Financial Services, industrial sciences firms

General Electric Company (GE) today said that it was looking at acquisition opportunities in India in financial services and industrial sciences sectors. The $165 billion global major is also looking at expanding its manufacturing base in India.

"We at GE think this is the time in India. We see acquisitions in financial services and industrial sciences. There will also be investments in localisation of technologies," said Jeffrey R Immelt, chairman & chief executive, GE.

This forms the part of the global major's plans to engage in emerging markets like India and China to achieve GE's target of 8 per cent annual growth.

GE Healthcare also today signed a memorandum of understanding with Naresh Trehan to set up the $250 million MediCity, which will undertake research in healthcare.

GE also hopes to solve the Dabhol imbroglio soon and is ready to work with the Indian government and other companies for early resolution of the Dabhol imbroglio.

Immelt said GE, which along with Bechtel controls 85 per cent in the beleaguered $3 billion Dabhol Power Company, was willing to work with the Indian government and companies to restart the 2,184 mw power plant.

"We want to do very constructive work and we are ready to work in partnership with the government or any other Indian company. "We want early resolution of the Dabhol issue and we want to move on," he said.

As per the revival strategy finalised by the empowered group of ministers, Indian lenders will buy out the offshore debt of foreign lenders and will also settle the claims of GE and Bechtel.

After settling all claims, state-run National Thermal Power Corporation and GAIL (India) would run the power plant and the LNG terminal respectively.

Immelt, who is in India for the second time in about 12 months, expects that the company's business in India, which is about $1 billion at the moment, to match that of China's soon. GE makes about $5 billion in China annually.

"India and China were the same in 1997. Today China is about five times larger than India. All the success and growth that we had in China will be here as well," he said while address a meeting of chief executives organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

"It is nor India or China. It is India and China for GE. We are targeting an 8 per cent growth and India and China are focal points of this growth. We must have success in big markets like this," he said.

According to Immelt, the government in India have been able to sustain the growth the economy has been experiencing. "There was some amount of trepidation about a year back, when the governments changed. But the growth has been sustained," he said.

Outlining the company's strategy for India, he said that GE sees this as the third phase of growth for it. He said that the company's investments in India at the first phase met with limited success, while in the second phase, when the company chose to invest in Indian talent it had a huge success.

"Earlier, when ever we invested in the market, we have lost. And whenever we invested in people, it benefited us. This time, we are going to invest in the market," he said.

Drawing a comparison between India and China, he said that China's macro economic performance has been a success story backed by strong investments and improvements in infrastructure.

But, for China issues like financial services sector etc have been a challenge. On the other hand, India has made strong growth and progress in areas like financial services and legal systems.