India Inc doubles foreign buys

Target

Deal size ($ m)

Region

ONGC

Sakhalin Oil & Gas Fields

1700

Russia

ONGC

Royal Dutch/Shell

660

Angola

Tata Steel

NatSteel

298

Singapore

Reliance

FLAG Telecom

211

US

VSNL

Tyco global network

133

US

Reliance Inds

Trevira

103

Europe

Scandent Group

Cambridge Integrated

100+

US

Ranbaxy

Aventis

70

France

Infosys

Expert Information

23

Australia

Wipro

NerveWire Inc

18.7

US

 The party seems all set to continue in 2005 too. Example: the $5.60 billion acquisition of Basell by a consortium led by the Chatterjee group this month.  Harish HV, head of mergers & acquisitions (M&A) at Grant Thornton India, for example, sees at least a 30 per cent jump in the number of M&As in 2005. Going by trends, the value of the total deals should more than double, he said.  Agrees Manish Thakkar, vice-president, M&A, at ICICI Securities.