A Year Of Churn At India Inc

- Rajiv Bhuva

Henry Kravis surely knows a thing or two about investing. It is not for nothing that the private equity giant founded by Kravis and his cousin, George Roberts, in 1976 has a staggering $195 billion in assets around the world.

So when Kravis, co-chairman and co-CEO of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR), said on a recent trip to India that his firm liked to buy “complexities”, it was a telling remark on KKR’s investment rationale. This is also perhaps the reason why KKR has significantly grown its portfolio in India—across asset classes like equity, credit and everything in between—since 2009. After all, there is hardly any other economy in the world where these lucrative complexities exist the way they do in India.

The annual Fortune India 500 list of the country’s top companies and the intricate details that lie therein are arguably the best manifestation of such complexity and a definitive reflection of the state of India Inc. At the start of 2018, Fortune India called out consolidation as the ‘Move of the Year’, alluding to foreseeable mergers and acquisitions that would see debt-laden enterprises change ownership, with their promoters’ hands forced by banks. These lenders have been hit hard with bad debt but are now empowered with a more stringent and unforgiving bankruptcy law. And, surely, the Fortune India 500 list for 2018 (based on fiscal year 2017-18 data)—the barometer of corporate India’s performance—has captured this new reality.