Showing posts with label IIPM Admission Detail. Show all posts
Showing posts with label IIPM Admission Detail. Show all posts

Monday, October 08, 2012

Indian firms more so!

CEOs have ripped apart shareholders’ wealth globally under the guise of M&As; Indian firms more so! B&E’s Manish K. Pandey, Deepak R. Patra and Karan Mehrishi undertake the most radical analysis of the recent past and destroy age-old perceptions!

But Indians, as we said before, never learn! But hey, isn’t India too supposed to grow on the back of mega-merger deals? Isn’t L. N. Mittal, who succeeded in merging his company with Arcelor (the world’s largest steel corporation), the new purveyor of the rise of Indians? Aren’t flamboyant Indian companies like Tata Steel, Suzlon, Aditya Birla Nuvo, GMR Infra, TCS, Ranbaxy, Apollo, Videocon, ONGC and many more – which have accounted for multi billion dollar M&A deals in the last three years while taking over foreign and domestic corporations – sparkling benchmarks of corporate excellence?

And what about the paeans being sung in the praise of indisputable leaders like Tata Coffee (which bought off 30% of Energy Brands Corporation in the US for an unbelievable $677 million), Dr. Reddy’s Labs (which snapped up Germany’s Betapharm for a gigantic $576 million), Ranbaxy (which gobbled up Terapia of Romania for a smothering $324 million) and innumerable more? Are we simply supposed to believe that most of these Indian M&A deals are, er, stupid? Considering shareholder value, revenue growth, cost synergies, and almost everything a company could have stood for, the answer is yes!

We started with the May 2008 BCG report (The Return of the Strategist) where this former supporter of M&As confirms, “The key question is not whether deal volumes and values will fall or rise, but whether it is still [ever] possible to generate [any] value from [M&A] transactions!... More than half of mergers destroy value for acquirers’ shareholders!” The May 2007 research (Why M&A Deals Are Bad For Shareholders) of the motherlode of all institutions, HBS, quotes, “Most M&A deals destroy shareholder value!”

How has the thinking been a few years back? The April 2004 HBS paper (Should We Brace Ourselves For Another Era Of M&A Value Destruction?) states eloquently, “In the end, M&A is a flawed process, invented by brokers, lawyers and CEOs with super-sized egos!” MarkSirower, author of the famous book Synergy Trap, shows how, on an average, 2/3rds of all deals end up destroying shareholder value. Even the famed McKinsey, once a fanatic supporter of M&As, had to accept that in the US & UK, only one quarter of all M&As even recovered the merger costs.

Their November 2001 hallmark paper (Why Mergers Fail) stated prophetically, “The belief that mergers drive revenue growth could be a myth!” In that paper, McKinsey showed how a massive 78% of companies failed to manage significant growth over a period of three years post the M&A! Professors Weber and Camerer of Carnegie Mellon University, in April 2003, statistically showed in their benchmark thesis (Merger Failure...) that “a majority of corporate mergers fail!” The Economist reported in 1999,“Study after study has shown that 2/3rd of all deals haven’t worked!” CEO Magazine reported similarly, “75% of M&As are disappointing or outright failures!” BCG’s sparkling July 2007 report, The Brave New World of M&As, documents, “Larger deals destroy progressively more value!... Deals that are above $1 billion destroy nearly twice as much value as those under $1 billion!” The hugely referenced Business Strategy Review‘s 2005 paper (Merging on the Miraculous) had the first line, “More than 2/3 M&As fail to create meaningful shareholder value.” The Gartner/Forbes Executive Survey of February 2007 asked top global executives to rank various business issues. ‘Managing M&As’ came last on the 25 factor list! Factors like ‘Attracting and retaining skilled workers’, ‘attracting new customers’, ‘Increasing market share’ etc. were ranked miles above M&As! The Economist Intelligence Unit’s outstanding briefing (Corporate Priorities For 2007) goes better! When more than 1,000 global CEOs were asked, “Which forces will have the greatest impact on the global marketplace in the coming 3 years?,” they ranked ‘M&A activity’ sixth from the bottom! Hilariously, below this were only factors like ‘Catastrophic events (eg. terrorism, natural disasters)’, ‘Advances in back office technologies’, and of course, ‘Others’.

The NYSE CEO Report 2008 put the final nail in the M&A coffin by giving the empirical evidence that “most CEOs think revenue growth in their own companies will be driven far more from organic growth than M&A activity!” It also shows how there is a direct correlation between organic growth and a company’s market capitalisation! Global M&A deals touched $4.48 trillion in 2007 (from $3.61 trillion in 2006); Indian deals touched $51.11 billion in 2007 (from $20.30 billion in 2006).


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
 
IIPM : The B-School with a Human Face
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Saturday, October 06, 2012

We’re Doomed!

If This is the Best The US has Against us, The World is...!

It’s amazing how one woman, who apparently could well become the next Republican presidential candidate, has the capacity to continuously churn out one gaffe after another, giving fright-nights to global leaders about the fact that the lady lacks factual command of international issues and might even bomb the wrong nation one fine day. Here’s a look at some of her rib-tickling output:

October 1, 2008: In an interview with Katie Couric of CBS News, she was asked to name a few newspapers she reads. Unable to name any, she said, “All of ‘em, any of ‘em that have been in front of me over all these years.”

November 5, 2008: In an interview in Fox News, she said, “We spend a lot of time talking about Africa, as we should. Africa is a nation that suffers from incredible diseases.”

July 18, 2010: “Ground Zero Mosque supporters: doesn’t it stab you in the heart, as it does ours throughout the heartland? Peaceful Muslims, pls refudiate,” Palin tweeted, inventing a new English word.

November 22, 2010: In an interview with Sean Hannity, she commented on her role to media, “I want to help clean up the state that is so sorry today of journalism... I have a communications degree.”

November 24, 2010: In an interview on Glenn Beck’s radio show, commenting on the Korean tension, “But obviously, we’ve got to stand with our North Korean allies.” Later, she corrected herself.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
 
IIPM : The B-School with a Human Face
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Tuesday, September 04, 2012

It pays at times to stay married!

Speculations abound on the probability of the Hero Honda JV heading for a sudden break up. B&E’s Pawan Chabra does a speed-check on the repercussions of such an event for both players

August 26, 2010. Venue: Taj Palace Hotel, New Delhi. SIAM’s 50th annual convention was in its last session before the day was called off. The theme of the session was crystal ball gazing for the Indian automotive industry, and the panel had eminent names of the industry like Anand Mahindra, Vice Chairman & MD, Mahindra & Mahindra, Abhay Firodia, Chairman, Force Motors, Ravi Kant, Vice Chairman, Tata Motors and Venu Srinivasan, CMD, TVS Motors. As the session was in its question and answer round, Madhur Bajaj, Vice Chairman, Bajaj Auto pointed out that it is somehow difficult to predict the future; as an example, Madhur forwarded the example that in the early 1980s, no one could have predicted that scooters will be replaced by motorcycles. Before Madhur could complete his statement, Abhay Firodia gesticulated towards the much respected Brijmohan Lall Munjal, Chairman, Hero Honda Motors (sitting next to Madhur Bajaj on the same table), giving a repartee, “He predicted it!” The statement consolidated the emotion of the event – that not only had the Munjals forecasted correctly the change, they had also acted on the same in a brilliant manner, by forging one of the most successful JVs in Indian corporate history with Honda Motor Corporation in 1984.

It was at a period when the country saw many JVs and alliances happening in the domestic circuit – be it Kinetic joining hands with Honda or TVS and Suzuki getting into an alliance. But the fact is that most of these alliances ended sour – including all those mentioned above; all except the Hero Honda JV.

But apparently, corporate history is set to be re-written. The technological agreement between Honda and the Hero group was due to expire in 2014, but reports are now filtering out that Honda is attempting to move away from the relationship by attempting to sell their stake in the JV, The day these yet unconfirmed reports hit the stock bourses, Hero Honda saw its share price falling by over 6%. But that’s clearly not the worrying part for the Hero group. It’s quite evident that the parting of ways could inflict much more damage to the Hero group; which will be left lagging on the technology front.

In reality, even till last month, there was no such talk, report or discussion about any future breakup. When B&E met Anil Dua, Senior VP – Marketing & Sales, Hero Honda, in August 2010, he had enthusiastically commented, “Honda has had the most profitable JV with the Hero Group in India and as the companies have been launching right products at the right time, the strategy has paid off very well.” On the contrary, sources in the industry are of a view that the main issue of dispute between the two giants is on royalty payments. In case such a breakup does occur, the option of getting a new technology partner, developing its own R&D or continuing with Honda’s support are the most probable choices for the Hero group. For the uninitiated, the Hero Group owns a majority stake in the JV (see chart) and with Honda moving out, it would not only take a huge pile of cash reserves from Hero (to acquire the stake, if it wants to stop others from buying into the company) but the company could also take a temporary blow on volumes (due to supply issues). The market leader is already facing supply constraints and has seen its market share fall from over 50% since time immemorial to 44% in September 2010; and competitors like Bajaj Auto & TVS Motors have been quick to build on the opportunity.



 
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Monday, September 03, 2012

US: Pranab is still the External Affairs minister

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s State Department considers Pranab Mukherjee to be India’s foreign minister! More similar gaffes inside...

Truth is stranger than fiction, but fiction does appear to have an irresistible appeal for two of the world’s largest administrative agencies, the US State Department and CIA. The official web portals and communiqués of the US State Department and CIA are splattered with notable misinformation and errors that would be necessarily considered highly affronting at a diplomatic level.

Last week, we showed how both the State Department and CIA confidently misrepresented India’s map (and showed Kashmir as part of Pakistan) on their websites. We had no idea there was more to come – perhaps even ‘the’ reason for why the Americans seem to be making no headway with India on foreign affairs. The US State Department’s official website mentions that the Minister of External Affairs of India is (still) Pranab Mukherjee! S. M. Krishna, the current Foreign Minister of India since May 2009, has been notably left out of the State Department’s official communiqués. Incidentally, Krishna has also met Barack Obama in various forums, including at New York in September 2009. Not all listed information is wrong, though. Some US government letters are thankfully still reaching the right addresses in India. The Home Minister of India is correctly named as P. Chidambaram; and so are some other Indian politicians.

Mistakes on the CIA and State Department’s websites are not only India-centric but can be found in the case of other countries too. What’s interesting is that, in spite of the official websites of these respective countries portraying genuine information, the US has failed to recognise the same in its own records. First, the comical. In South Korea, three years ago, a series of protests against the CIA finally forced the agency to correct the information about South Korea’s origins (CIA had earlier amusingly stated that “South Korea has been a nation for a millennium;” South Korea, apparently a stickler for dates, protested en masse as this nation has been in existence only since the last 4000 years).


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Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Israel: Keep the faith

The tour started on a serious note. In fact, serious is a definite understatement. I would rather call the experience solemn. How else would you describe a place which has been the point of the Crusades for centuries, where all the three People of the Book go to pray within 500 metres of each other, a place whose religious diversity would shroud the entire region’s polity for an eternity? Climbing up the stairs of old city, I took the same path that Jesus Christ had taken en route to the Church of the Holy Sepulchur where he was crucified. Amid the frenzy of the faithful gathered all around, I managed to kneel down and touch the stone on which the Pilate drove the nail in. That touch proved to be fateful, setting the mood of my trip. While quick visits to the Wailing Western Wall, holiest place for Jews, and the Dome of the Rock, holy to both Jews and Muslims, only added to the heavy weather forming within myself, I did not have recourse to a load of feni to take care of the faith overdose. There was the lovely Kosher wine from the Golan Heights but I will come to it later.

I was in Jerusalem, a city where history and faith, civilisation and myth, ethnicity and religion make an incendiary broth.

The city exacts an opinion about it. I found it thoroughly captivating but eerie, maybe the present-day political situation of the region adding to the tension in the air. There is something extreme about this place; it never lets you relax even if it be an endless stroll through the Arab or Jewish quarters.

The next day turned out to be a whole lot different. It involved a visit to a kibbutz, Israel’s equivalent of a commune. Today, socialism has been totally replaced by nationalism and community interplay by private ownership. Well, one could argue if Zionism was a desired conclusion of the community experiment but this isn’t the proper forum. Just a stone’s throw from Kibbutz Ein Gadi, was the Dead Sea, lowest point on earth. The proverbial dunk in the mineral-rich waters proved to be refreshing, while being afloat all the way.

Masada, the UNESCO World Heritage Site, the complex of palaces and fortifications built by King Herod, stands on a horst on the eastern edge of the Judean Desert. The place was scene to a two-year-long siege by Roman forces during the First Jewish-Roman War. At the end of the two years, the Roman garrison went for an all out offensive, leaving the 900-odd Sicarii rebels with the only option of surrender. The rebels opted for mass suicide and the Romans occupied the City of the Dead. Till date, the opulent baths, storage houses and the hanging palace of Herod stand firm, beautiful witnesses to a horrific and heroic act in defence of faith. This was a heavy experience too. Today, members of the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) hold their swearing-in ceremony on the top of Masada. It ends with the pledge: “Masada will not fall again.”


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Monday, August 20, 2012

The strange cases of Benjamin Buttons!

While drug makers around the world are lamenting the death of their patent rights on many blockbusters, there is a certain tribe smiling about it – the Indian generic tribe

A year back, when John Lechleiter took charge as the CEO of the $21.8 billion-a-year earning US pharma giant Eli Lilly, he decided to send his top executives a gift. It was a digital clock, which counted backwards, second by second. The clock was programmed to stop ticking precisely 48,384,000 seconds later. The deadline – October 23, 2011, the day when Eli Lilly’s top-selling (which raked-in $4.9 billion in 2009) schizophrenia pill Zyprexa would go off-patent, setting-off the alarm for generic drug companies to work double-time. This is however, not the only heartache in store for Lechleiter. Besides two more blockbusters losing their exclusivity rights by 2016 (its second-best selling Cymbalta expires 2013 and its third-best Alimta in 2016 – two drugs that make for another $4.8 billion-a-year), two of its most promising compounds failed the final clinical trials last year. Result: Lilly’s stock could not withstand the shock that the company had no new compound ready to hit the global market, while standing to lose close to $10 billion (of its $21.8 billion revenues FY2009) by 2016. It became the worst performer amongst the eleven S&P pharma stocks, and fell by 11% in just the year 2009. This is however just the beginning of the landslide for Eli Lilly, and much remains to be seen. As for the clock, it has started ticking backwards, and it’s the generic challengers that are waiting for the time, to make most of the misery of the once-proud patent holders, Lilly being just an instance.

When shareholders don’t like you, they let you go sans remorse. Much as this sounds a “generic” take on shareholder activism, it is true. Jean-Paul Garnier was voted out despite trying hard for seven-and-a-half years to revive the GlaxoSmithKline stock. Busy ensuring delivery of drugs at cost and selling 90% of its vaccines at not-for-profit prices in developing economies, it lost focus on new drug discovery. During his tenure, the GSK stock had fallen by 41%. He got the boot in May 2008. His successor Andrew Witty hasn’t made amends yet. Since February 2009, the company has enforced price cuts on its patented versions, in more than 50 countries, while winning just one patent (on a vaccine for H1N1 influenza). Witty is dreading the day when the second-highest selling drug in history, the $7.8 billion-a-year earning Advair, expires on April 1, 2011. Pfizer, the biggest pharma giant is no exception. CEO Henry McKinnell was booed-out in June 2006, following a stagnant stock price. His successor Jeff Kindler hasn’t been an exception. Under him, Pfizer’s stock has touched the sub-$18 level for the second time in over a decade and its bottomlines for 2009 have shown a drop of 57% as compared to pre-Kindler days. Worse, despite losing patents on 14 big drugs by 2014 (representing 70% of its annual revenue for 2009), its new launches have simply been shadows. Of the biggest setbacks will be the losses of Lipitor’s patent (the largest-selling drug ever) in 2011, and that of Viagra in 2012 and Celebrex in 2013 – add the losses from these two, and you would have Pfizer’s revenues being reduced by an alarming $13.74 billion (as per Evaluate Pharma, loss of revenues, post-patent expiry, is estimated at 85%). “Pfizer has a number of downward revenue revisions. You have to believe board members are scratching their heads,” says David S. Moskowitz, Analyst at Friedman, Billings, Ramsey Group Inc. The company has 148 compounds in the early developmental stages, but hopes of producing another blockbuster drug remains a fantasy.

Time is running out fast for these Benjamin Buttons of the pharma world, and of the lot most hated by them, the Indians are definitely on top of the list! But the volume-playing generic players in the country won’t mind it. The potential that lies in wait to be tapped by the Indian players can be imagined by the fact that despite being the third largest player in terms of volumes in the world, the Indian pharma market is still 14th in terms of value ($21.04 billion, as per Department of Pharmaceuticals, Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers). A market which was written-off about half-a-decade back, when the world was heaving forward at a great rate of knots to catch the patent blockbusters bus, is now chugging ahead faster than imagined before. While the domestic market alone is expected to grow at a CAGR of 12-15%, as opposed to a global average of 4-7% during 2008-2013 (according to an October 2009 report released by research firm IMS Health), Indian pharma companies are finding the proposition of lapping up the opportunities granted by the patent expiries simply irresistible. Over the next two years, more than 26 bestsellers, with an annual value of $70 billion (Rs.3.1 trillion) are going off-patent, representing 240% of the current Indian pharma space. This justifies well why despite struggling to win approvals for generic versions from the USFDA, Indian drugmakers are filing for generic licences at a brisk pace. Indian companies have filed for approvals to market 11 of 15 drugs that go off-patent by 2010 and 22 of the 26 that expire by 2012. “These developments present large opportunities to the Indian pharma companies and with their low-cost manufacturing capabilities India is well-positioned to tap the opportunities,” says Animesh Kumar, Principal Consultant, Datamonitor Healthcare to B&E.

Explaining his company’s outlook in the generics space, Ramesh Adige, President, Ranbaxy tells B&E, “Ranbaxy is today well positioned in the global generics space and is amongst the top 10 generic companies globally offering products in over 125 countries. With over $80 billion of drugs going off patent by 2012, the generics market will continue to provide attractive growth opportunities in future.” Even Uday Baldota, VP – Investor Relations, Sun Pharma tells B&E, “In our view, generic drugs is a significant, growing and profitable opportunity, worldwide. We are working towards getting a meaningful presence in the worldwide generic industry over the longer term.” As per a report by HDFC Securities, 34 Indian players are looking ahead to play this game. While Dr. Reddy’s stands to gain the most, there are others like Ranbaxy and Sun Pharma (despite their troubles with USFDA), which are amongst the top gainers. Even Cipla, which has so far avoided the US market, has filed for permission to market generic/low-cost editions of drugs that make over $45 billion annually! While 10 Indian firms have seeked permission to sell generic versions of the highest-selling Lipitor, in US alone, it is Merck’s Cozaar (anti-diabetic drug) and Astra Zeneca’s Arimidex (anti-cancer), which have received the maximum number of applications from the country.


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Monday, August 13, 2012

A new chapter in moral science

With most illegal activities occurring in the dark of the night, researchers have now illuminated the effect of light on our morals

Author Anton Chekhov’s story ‘The Robbers’ brings to mind images of stealthy, sly and lustful robbers’ lamp-lit den where the on-set of night didn’t signal terminating all activities, but rather incited setting spirits to satiate their beastly cravings. Characterising the darkness of the night in myriad metaphorical ways, Chekhov kept the reader’s pulse racing till the end. If merely repetitive mention of darkness can set a person’s heart racing, could the cloak of darkness embolden some to commit crimes too?

A recent study by psychologists Chen-Bo Zhong and Vanessa Bohns of the University of Toronto and Francesca Gino of the University of North Carolina suggests that it isn’t only the fear of exposure that leads to increased incidents of misconduct in darkness. Rather, it is darkness that triggers some of the destructive emotions that may lead one to misbehave! It was the unanimity of the results of the experiments conducted that led to publishing the research in the journal Psychological Science. Participants in dimly-lit surroundings were seen to cheat more than those in the brightly-lit set-up. While in another set of participants, who were only made to wear sunglasses and asked to divide $6 amongst each other in any way they wished, it was noted that ‘darkness increased their self-interested behaviour’!

Dr. Sanjay Chugh agrees and adds to the theory here, “I would agree with this. No one likes to be caught when doing something wrong. So, people try to hide or do it on the sly. Darkness provides the best cover. 


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Friday, August 10, 2012

Enemies in the shadows

As Sri Lanka negotiates the detritus of a long and tragic ethnic conflict, huge challenges loom over the tentative reconciliation process. B&E’s Surabh Kumar Shahi reports from Vavuniya

Ponnambalam Ramanathan was part of Sri Lanka’s tragic war. It was a long time ago. He is now part of the wobbly peace now. Four years ago, a LTTE veteran of ten years, he accompanied a small assault team that detonated a bomb inside the office of a political entity which was a constituent of the government alliance then. Ramanathan does not remember exactly how many were killed. He just remembers that no one was left. He killed two people.

Sitting inside a rehabilitation camp in a suburb of Colombo, he does not want to recall those days. He surrendered in 2006 outside and promptly threw away the cyanide capsule that any LTTE cadre, was supposed to swallow to evade arrest. He is now learning carpentry and is almost impervious to any emotions. But he regrets the violence.

Such optimism seems misplaced in today’s Sri Lanka. To overwhelm the LTTE, the regime had augmented the war machine to match the callousness of its opponent. It is now tackling the fallout of that war. As it confronts accusations of human rights abuses, the regime tries to alleviate the uncertainty and mistrust among ethnic Tamils after the conflict that lasted close to 30 years. The president, therefore, has an uphill task of reconciliation before him.

In the refugee camps in the North many Tamils are still struggling to survive. Between 150,000 to 300,000 refugees are still there. They somehow managed to survive the last stages of the battle. However, the end of the conflict has triggered questions regarding their future and the odds of co-existence between the Sinhalese and Tamils.

The first step is to allow the remaining refugees to return home. Without this, all talk of reconciliation would be meaningless. Talking to B&E, Wickremabahu Karunaratne, leader of the New Left Front, says, “The government has stressed it has sifted about 10,000 rebels from among the refugees. Then what are the camps for? Let the people return and take the initiative in the peace process.”

The government too understands the issue and is keeping it on its priority list. However, the process is painfully slow and ridden with red-tape. The regime’s non-clarity over their plan to develop and reconstruct the north and east is not helping at all. With the elections out of the way, the regime needs to take local communities and political leaders into confidence before beginning the process of reconstruction. “The military influence over policies and control over the population need to end. Only demilitarisation can lead to confidence-building,” says K Sarweshwaran, a political scientist based in Colombo. The regime must also allay fears that demographic changes could dilute the Tamil character of the north.

Restoring land comes next. A huge section of the Tamils sent out of the IDP camps have not returned home nor have they been resettled. Instead, they have been sent to “transit centres” in their respective home districts. These are essentially schools, government buildings and places of worship which are far away from any means of livelihood. Also, the homes of many of these Tamils were either partially damaged or fully destroyed during the conflict. And most of these houses have also been relieved of household items and any items of value. The regime must come up with adequate compensation so that the people might restart their life.

Return of agricultural land will be another essential step. But there are teething problems. Large tracts of farmland, riddled with land-mines laid by the LTTE, are yet to be de-mined. Farming is impossible on these plots. Even in areas that have been officially de-mined, the exercise had been done only up to “battlefield use” standards, not up to “humanitarian” standards.

The government on its part has done a few things that will help mend ties. For example, the allotment of rice for the northern and eastern region has been increased so that till the time agriculture is impossible, there is a constant supply of rice. Also, the government and financial institutions have decided to reduce interest rates and taxes on loans in these regions. This will encourage investors as well as bring in much-needed change in infrastructure in the area. Tender for a new railway line connecting the region with other parts of the country has already been floated. In some of the sections, the work has already started. All these initiatives are part of the regime''s “Northern Spring” initiative.

Strengthening of democratic institutions would be equally crucial. Sarath Fernando, moderator of the Movement of Lands and Agriculture Reform, told B&E, “A country needs strong democratic institutions for confidence building. We are no exception.” A strong independent media is the need of the hour. One of the conflict’s casualties has been an independent press that can openly criticise both the parties without any fear of retribution. Sri Lanka’s ranking in a press-freedom index has slid in recent years as prominent journalists critical to both the Rajapaksa political family and the LTTE have been assaulted, threatened and even killed.


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