A takeover fever has gripped India Inc. The deal street is buzzing as never before with companies making takeover or merger announcement on a daily basis. Almost every listed company is on the prowl — both at home as well as abroad — looking for a suitable prey. The arrival of private equity funds with many buyouts has further spiced up the market.

The takeover mania is hotting up with the year-end moves by two major business groups — the Tatas (for Corus) and the Anil Ambani group (for Hutchison Essar). If these two takeover deals materialise in December, the total value of takeover deals in 2006 will almost hit the $50 billion mark, a record for India Inc.

According to Grant Thornton, there were 80 M&A deals with a total value of about $10.73 billion in September and October 2006. “The total M&A deals so far between January and October 2006 have been about 380 with an announced value of $24.4 billion,” it says.Of these, the number of domestic deals has been 170 with a value of $4.02 billion. The number of inbound cross border deals has been 62 with a value of $4.67 billion and the number of outbound cross border deals was 147 with a value of $15.72 billion. Pharma, infotech, steel and cement sectors have seen the maximum number of deals.

There have been some significant outbound acquisitions by Indian companies — which are flush with funds after reporting 20 per cent plus profit growth in the last two years — in Sept-Oct 2006, the largest being the Tata-Corus takeover plan. Though Tata Steel has revised its offer for the Anglo-Dutch steel maker Corus, Brazilian company CSN has come out with a higher bid worth $ 9.16 billion. “If this deal goes the Tata Steel’s way, the total outbound

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