Friday, January 25, 2008

That’s (Alu)minimum value!

Expensive metal (and we’re not talking of gold here!) is the hot & melting topic for the season in Canada. Well, you’d want to believe it’s so at least at Alcan Inc., the Canadian aluminium giant, where the shareholders apparently hold a Tom Albanese, CEO, Rio Tinto & his dream of making a base metal...view that ‘what if it’s not gold they own? Atleast their aluminium is worth its weight in gold!’ Yes, they firmly believe so, for they wouldn’t otherwise brush aside Alcoa’s colossal $26.9 billion revised bid offer & ask for more… But then again, the obvious happened & the Alcan shareholders didn’t have to wait for long, for along came Rio Tinto, the world’s second largest mining behemoth with its all-cash $38.1 billion mighty offer at $101 per Alcan share. ‘Overvalued’ you think as compared to the previous bids it received from Alcoa? Our confident answer to that is – yes! Grossly overvalued!


For Complete IIPM Article, Click here

Source: IIPM Editorial, 2008

An IIPM and Management Guru Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri's Initiative

Thursday, January 17, 2008

The auto’matic dispute

The Bajaj clan is broadly divided into two families; one of Jamnalal Bajaj’s elder son Kamalnayan Bajaj (Rahul and Shishir) and the younger Ramkrishna Bajaj (Shekhar, Madhur and Niraj). According to sources, Rahul and his brother Shishir together own close to 47% of the family fortunes, while the rest of the balance is distributed among their three cousinsTesting its brakes?!. Rahul and his three cousins are said to be in cordial relationship while brother Shishir is apparently the opposing party.

Shishir, who manages the group’s third largest company, Bajaj Hindustan, has been vying for a business split for long. It all started when Shishir wanted a lion’s share from the Bajaj Group and demanded close to $120 million as his share, along with a vertical split in Bajaj Auto. He also proposed to buy out stock held by his brothers in certain companies he was interested in running and managing. This was reportedly deemed unjustifiable and not accepted, accordingly turned down. At one time it appeared that the Bajajs were grouped as ‘four brothers versus one’.


For Complete IIPM Article, Click here

Source: IIPM Editorial, 2008

An IIPM and Management Guru Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri's Initiative


Thursday, January 10, 2008

Past imperfect & present tense!

In the 21st century when mankind is at threshold of path-breaking innovations that can bring about a paradigm shift in the way s/he lives, perceives, thinks & changes the world around, it is unfortunate or rather an irony that amidst all the talks of technology & economic revolutions s/he has not been able to fully insure the lives of their own progenies. A look at the less civilised & more rustic wild life out there in the jungles would vindicate that it is this very thing i.e. the protection of the younger ones, which has always been & would always be a priority for any species, barring mankind & serpents perhaps.

World over it is not just the divide between haves & the have-nots, but also the disparity between the handful of children who are growing up in affluence while the majority eagerly waiting to hug misery. For they don’t need to wait till death, to get a glimpse of hell, (if at all), as for them the world itself has transformed into a living hell for them. The medium of atrocities might be disparate – from being forced to become a young soldier in a war camp, sexual abuse on the streets, sleeping with empty stomach in chilling winter nights or being openly traded like commodity at flesh market, the ends are the same. The gruesome reality today rampantly covers more than two-thirds of the world. Call it propaganda or ignorance, most think that gun to drug addicted children working for militias are restricted only to Sub-Saharan African countries, while the reality is pretty far from truth.
For Complete IIPM Article, Click here

Source: IIPM Editorial, 2008

An IIPM and Management Guru Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri's Initiative