Finance: DEALS IN DISTRESS

A slowing economy and widespread stress in India Inc. are reating opportunities for promoters and strategic investors to ink M&As, buy back shares and delist

- ANAND ADHIKARI

A few months ago, no one thought remote-controlled drones, used in military warfare, logistics and search and rescue operations, will be used in M&As. But travel restrictions are making investment bankers use drone footage of factories to give prospective buyers a 360-degree view from inside and outside.

“The buyer can visit the plant when the deal reaches the final stages,” says an investment banker involved in one such deal. Negotiations are taking place over Zoom or Skype. This is probably one reason why deal street is buzzing despite lockdown since end-March. The investment banking community has found many ways to complete a transaction, including structuring the deal in a way that it is linked to future deliverables. So far, the M&A deals in 2020 have crossed $32 billion.

A big backlog of pre-Covid deals had smooth sailing in Q1 of FY2021. Jio Platforms, the subsidiary of Reliance Industries, raised over $20 billion from a dozen marquee investors such as Facebook, Google, KKR, General Atlantic, TPG, Silver Lake, and Intel, among others. Jio Platforms alone pushed private equity (PE) and venture capital investments in May 2020 to $5.4 billion, compared to $2.8 billion a year ago. GMR Infrastructure, which operates Delhi and Hyderabad airports, sealed a deal to sell 49 per cent in its airport business to France-based ADP. In July this year, Carlyle signed a deal to acquire a 25 per cent stake in Bharti Airtel’s data center business.