Takeover Season

Boy this does seem to be the season of accquisitions- mergers take the back seat. Two more on the way.

Suzlon Energy- the wind power people from India have taken over Belgium based Hansen, the world's largest maker of wind turbine gearboxes, for US$565 mn in an all cash transaction.Barclays, Deutsche and ICICI bank acted on behalf of Suzlon while UBS acted on behalf of the sellers.Tulsi R. Tanti (Chairman- Suzlon) seems to be eyeing to get up there on the Forbes list alongside fellow Indian Lakshmi Mittal (ok-maybe not just yet)..but nevertheless, good going!

Meanwhile, after a speculation of takeover by various firms, Softbank is in the drivers seat in the take over of VodaFone's struggling japanese unit for a reported US$15bn - taking 15 mn customers in the process. Masayoshi Son, the brain child behind the successful internet service company is using this strategy to enter the mobile market without having to build infrastructure from scratch. KDDI and NTT DoCoMo better watch out !!