as India Remaining a bright spot in an otherwise gloomy global economic scenario, the country’s corporate sector showed good appetite for acquisitions in 2022, a year that also saw the downfall of some of its key leaders. Cement, retail, pharmaceuticals and quick commerce were the sectors that witnessed multi-crore deals as players sought to enhance their respective positions in the industry.
India Inc also lost two of its leaders – Cyrus Mistry, former chairman of Tata Sons, in an accident that brought to the fore the need to wear seat belts even while sitting in rear seats, and Vikram Kirloskar, vice-chairman of Toyota Kirloskar Motor, in an accident. Due to heart attack.
As far as acquisitions are concerned, the cement industry made headlines in 2022, as Asia’s richest man Gautam Adani-led Adani Group acquired Swiss construction materials major Holcim’s cement business, including Ambuja Cement and ACC, for 6.4 billion Sept via USD deal.
The acquisition gave port-to-power conglomerate Adani Group a foothold in the cement sector, making it the second largest player after Aditya Birla Group firm UltraTech Cement, which had earlier undertaken expansion plans worth around Rs 13,000 crore to maintain its lead. was announced.
In December, debt-ridden Jaypee Group announced the sale of its cement business to Dalmia Cement (Bharat) Ltd for an enterprise value of Rs 5,666 crore, exiting the segment.
Interestingly, in the retail sector, it was in April that Reliance’s Rs 24,713-crore deal to acquire the retail business of Kishore Biyani-led Future Group was shelved.
Nevertheless, billionaire Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance ended the year by acquiring the assets of Germany’s METRO AG as well as Indian cash and business in a deal worth Rs 2,850 crore. This included the operative business of all 31 Metro India stores as well as the real estate portfolio, which included six store-owned properties and gave a significant boost to Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd (RRVL), the retail arm of Reliance Industries.
At the beginning of the year, RRVL announced its entry into the FMCG business and acquired domestic soft drink brand Campa, among a few other brands. It also introduced its own brands of staples, processed foods, beverages and other daily essentials. Now Reliance will compete with ITC, Tata Consumer Products Limited and Adani Wilmar’s FMCG food business.
Reliance Retail has become India’s largest brick-and-mortar retailer with over 16,600 stores. It is ranked 56th among the top global retailers with revenue of US$18 billion and is the world’s second fastest growing retail company behind only South Korea’s Coupang.
However, for Kishore Biyani – the pioneer of modern retail in India – it was a year to forget as his future retail empire almost collapsed.
Big Bazaar, once a major player in the Indian retail industry with around 1,500 stores under formats such as Easyday Club, smaller neighborhood stores such as Eucalyptus, Heritage Fresh, and fashion retailers such as fbb and Central, among others, went bankrupt. Several group companies have repeatedly defaulted on payments to lenders.
The lenders dragged the group companies before the NCLT with pleas to initiate insolvency proceedings. Some of them are also facing forensic audit from their lenders.
Future Retail, the flagship firm of Biyani’s group, now has 13 companies, including Reliance Retail and Flamingo Group, part of the Adani group, in the race to acquire it through insolvency proceedings.
In the pharma sector, the Justi family, promoters of Suven Pharmaceuticals, selling a 50.1 per cent stake in the company to global private equity investor Advent International for Rs 6,313.08 crore in December was the major deal of the year.
Advent followed it up with the announcement of an open offer from public shareholders to acquire 26 per cent more in the listed contract development and manufacturing outfit that, if fully subscribed, would entail an aggregate outlay of Rs 3,276.25 crore.
The PE major intends to explore the merger of its portfolio company Cohens with Suven to create a leading end-to-end contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) and merchant active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) player serving the pharma and specialty chemical market. can do.
Earlier in September, Torrent Pharmaceuticals had entered into an agreement to acquire Sequoia-backed Curatio Healthcare for Rs 2,000 crore to strengthen its presence in the dermatology segment.
Chennai-headquartered Curatio has a portfolio of over 50 brands in the cosmetic dermatology segment in India, including Tedibar, Atogla, Spoo, B4 Nappy and Permit.
With the rapid growth of e-commerce, especially instant commerce in India, online food delivery platform Zomato announced the acquisition of Blink Commerce Pvt Ltd (formerly known as Grofers) for Rs 4,447.48 in a share swap deal. As part of its strategy in the Rs. Investment in quick commerce business.
Salt-to-software conglomerate Tata Group, on the other hand, launched its super app Tata Neu, bringing all its brands under one platform, as it seeks to play a major role in the Indian e-commerce space, taking on Amazon and Walmart. was dominated by choice. Flipkart.
The media and entertainment sector also had its share of consolidation with the finalization of Zee Entertainment’s merger with rival Culver Max. Entertainment (earlier Sony Pictures Networks India).
Similarly, India’s leading multiplex operator PVR announced a merger with rival Inox Leisure, creating an entity operating around 1,500 screens across the country.
One of the major developments of the year in the news broadcasting industry was the acquisition of NDTV by the Adani Group. It began when the Adani group acquired a 29.18 per cent stake in NDTV by buying a company backed by television network founder Prannoy Roy and his wife Radhika Roy. Subsequently, it made an open offer to acquire an additional 26 per cent from public shareholders.
After the Adani group acquired an 8.26 per cent stake, taking its total stake in NDTV to 37.44 per cent – higher than the 32.26 per cent held by the founders, the latter decided to sell 27.26 per cent of its stake.
The sale will take place in one or more tranches on or after December 30. After this acquisition, Adani Group will hold 69.71 per cent stake in NDTV.
The year also witnessed the ouster of media baron Subhash Chandra-led promoter family nominee Jawahar Goyal from the driving seat of Dish TV after the Yes Bank-led DTH operator’s shareholders re-appointed him as managing director. Rejected the offer to do so.
Videocon Group founder Venugopal Dhoot was another corporate leader who was arrested by the CBI following the arrest of former CEO and MD of the lender Chanda Kochhar and her husband Deepak Kochhar in the ICICI Bank loan fraud case.
For the corporate fight of the year, it went to the Kirloskar siblings – Sanjay Kirloskar, Chairman and Managing Director of Kirloskar Brothers Ltd (KBL) on one side and Rahul Kirloskar, Executive Chairman of Kirloskar Pneumatic Company Ltd, and Atul Kirloskar, Executive Chairman of Kirloskar Oil Engines Ltd. Kirloskar was on the other.
They have been at loggerheads since 2016 over a family settlement of the over 130-year-old Kirloskar Group property.
Rahul and Atul had raised questions on the corporate governance of KBL after it was cleared of insider trading charges by the Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT). He was accused of insider trading when he sold KBL shares to KIL in 2010.
KBL’s shareholders rejected a proposal for a forensic audit of the company’s affairs by an external agency, demanded by Kirloskar Industries Limited (KIL) along with Atul and Rahul.
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(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed)