When Tata Chemicals on Friday announced the acquisition of 63.5 per cent stake in Brunner Mond Group of the UK for Rs 508 crore, the Tata Group's spending on overseas buyouts during the year went up to Rs 4,120 crore, its largest so far in a single year.
The size of the Tata group's nine acquisitions in 2005 is only marginally lower than the Rs 4,380 crore spent so far by India Inc on buying companies abroad in the year.
Tata Chemicals' acquisition of Brunner is the group's third overseas buyout in a fortnight. Indian Hotels and Tata Steel acquired Starwood Group of Sydney and Millennium Steel, respectively, in the last two weeks.
Brunner Mond is Tata Chemicals' second acquisition during the year. It had earlier acquired Indo Maroc Phosphore of Morocco in March for Rs 166 crore.
The company had lost a takeover battle for Egyptian Fertilisers Company to a consortium of bidders in June.
India Inc's largest acquisition of the year has also come from the Tata's stable through the purchase of Millennium Steel of Thailand for Rs 1,818 crore.
Videocon's takeover of Thomson's colour picture tube business for about Rs 1,280 crore is next in the list, followed by Matrix Laboratories' Rs 1,183 crore acquisition of Docpharma of Belgium.
Compared to 9 this year, Tata group had acquired 6 companies last year.
The largest acquisition was Tata Steel's purchase of Singapore-based Natsteel.
The Group had bought three companies in 2002 (VSNL, Hughes Telecom and Regent Hotel) and two in 2003 (Airline Financial Support Services India and Gemplex).
Its foray into the global arena can be traced back to February 2000 when it acquired Tetley of the UK for pounds 271 million, arguably the first major cross-border acquisition by an Indian group.
With Friday's acquisition of Brunner Mond Group, Indian companies' total investment in taking over British firms exceeded $300 million (approximately Rs 1,380 crore) this year.
The largest of the lot has been Apeejay Surrendra Group's acquisition of Premier Foods' tea business and its flagship Typhoo brand for about $140 million.
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