Idea fall: Birla M&As take time to impress markets, but they eventually do

Idea fall may be knee-jerk reaction; most of group's M&As making money after years of being in red

Soon after the $21-billion merger between Idea Cellular and Vodafone was announced, shares of Aditya Birla group’s Idea Cellular collapsed nine per cent, leading to a destruction of shareholders' value.

When asked, Kumar Mangalam Birla, chairman of Aditya Birla group, said that the mergers and acquisitions (M&As) by the group over the years have added value to shareholders’ wealth and as the transactions are complex, the markets take some time to grasp the schemes. “If the management has taken hundreds of hours to put a scheme like this, it would certainly take the markets time to understand this transaction. The