Samir Mehta & Vijay Mallya steal the show this fortnight...

IIPM MANAGEMENT INSTITUTE

A trillion dollar economy – that’s what India is now; and although business confidence seems to have dipped this quarter (as per FICCI Business Confidence Index), India Inc. is still going strong. We have Samir Mehta, MD, Torrent Pharmaceuticals and flamboyant entrepreneur Vijay Mallya of UB Group and Kingfisher Airlines, who have completely overawed the global and Indian business circles. The past fortnight bore testimony to both men chasing their dreams. One was a grand success, while the other missed by a whisker. India Inc. derives immense encouragement from such successes, and even the failures keep fighting spirit alive and kicking...

Though Samir Mehta was not successful in his bid to acquire Merck KGaA’s generic business, he still made headlines. When bigwigs like Actavis of Iceland and Ranbaxy pulled out of the race, citing stretched valuations, Mehta of Torrent hung in there till the very end. He made a bold bid of $6.3 billion, which was only cut short by Mylan Laboratories’ $6.7 billion bid. The Torrent fight was backed by three global private equity giants – UKbased Greater Pacific Capital and Tudor Investment Corporation, and US-based Fortress Group. The motivation driving Mehta was – had he been successful, Torrent Pharma would have emerged among the top five global generic players in the world.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2007

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative