Financial Re Engineering

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A PROJECT REPORT ON FINANCIAL RE-ENGINEERING PREPARED BY MANISH KHATRI IN PARTIAL FULLFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENT OF POST GRADUATION DIPLOMA IN MANAGEMENT UNDER THE GUIDANCE OF AIR MSHL PRAKASH HONMODE

description

Its a project on the merger between hindalco n novelis

Transcript of Financial Re Engineering

Page 1: Financial Re Engineering

A PROJECT REPORT

ON

FINANCIAL RE-ENGINEERING

PREPARED BY

MANISH KHATRI

IN PARTIAL FULLFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENT

OF POST GRADUATION DIPLOMA IN MANAGEMENT

UNDER THE GUIDANCE OF

AIR MSHL PRAKASH HONMODE

SINHGAD BUSINESS SCHOOL, PUNE

DECEMBER 2008

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AKNOWLEDGEMENT

I take the opportunity to thank Sinhgad Business School, Pune for giving me this opportunity to do this project.

I would like to thank our Director Sir Mr. Anil Keskar, our class coordinator Mrs. Sridevi, special thanks to the Guide Sir Air Mshl Prakash Honmode and all faculty members and all those people who have helped me directly and indirectly in the successful completion of this project.

Manish Khatri

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STUDENT DECLARATION

I hereby declare that the project report entitled

FINANCIAL RE-ENGINEERING

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the award of diploma of

POST GRADUATION DIPLOMA IN MANAGEMENT

to Sinhgad Business School, Pune is prepared by me.

Place: PUNE

Date: 08/12/2008

Signature of the student

SBS281032

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APPROVAL CERTIFICATE

The Project Report of

Mr. MANISH KHATRI

FINANCIAL RE-ENGINEERING

is approved and is acceptable in quality and form.

Examiner

Signature: _____________________

Name: ________________________

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GUIDE’S CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that the Project Report entitled

FINANCIAL RE-ENGINEERING

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the award of diploma of

POST GRADUATION DIPLOMA IN MANAGEMENT

Of

Sinhgad Business School, Pune

MANISH KHATRI

Has prepared under my supervision and guidance and the Project Report is made by him only.

CERTIFIED

Signature_________________________

(Prof.) AIR MSHL PRAKASH HONMODE

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TOPICS

S.no. Particulars1. Re-engineering

2. Financial Re-engineering

3. Innovative Financial Reengineering

4. Various forms of Financial Reengineering

5. Meaning of merger and acquisition

6. Case study on Hindalco and Novellis

7. About Hindalco and Novellis

8. Synergy

9. Risk associated

10. The deal

11. Outcome of deal for both the companies

12. Recommendations

13. Bibliography

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RE-ENGINEERING

Re-engineering is the radical redesign of business processes and organisational structure in order to achieve significant improvements in performance, such as productivity, cost reduction, cycle time, and quality. It is the basis for many recent developments in management.

The cross-functional team, for example, has become popular because of the desire to reengineer separate functional tasks into complete cross-functional processes. Also, many recent management information systems developments aim to integrate a wide number of business functions. Enterprise resource planning, supply chain management, knowledge management systems, groupware and collaborative systems, Human Resource Management Systems and customer relationship management systems all owe a debt to re-engineering theory.

Re-engineering represents the recognition of problems and outlines methodologies for resolving them.re-engineering occurs in a series of four steps, which can feed back into the first step, if necessary, with leaders conducting activities to aid that effort on a daily basis. It includes the 4 E’s they are as under: - Examination, Establishment, Execution and Evaluation.

Re-engineering is not downsizing, restructuring, re-organization, automation new technology etc. It is the examination and reform or change of five components of the business that are:

1. Strategy2. Processes

3. Technology

4. Organization

5. Culture

We can understand these components with the help of an example of Purchasing Department, which is as follow: -

Most Purchasing departments or systems are still wrought with excessive paperwork and approval processes, most of which can be eliminated with very little effort. Look for day-to-day procedures that are task orientated, and refocus on functionality by simply asking staff if the process adds value to the employee's job or to the entity's or company's product or service.

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Take a look at purchasing staffing. When purchasing professionals must do their own typing, filings, faxing, etc., their salaries are being wasted on low-value functions. There are many ways to address this issue, but before additional staff is employed, there should be an analysis of all current and future tasks to determine which are really necessary, elimination of those that are not mandatory, and then utilization of other support staff on a part-time basis to accomplish repetitive procedures.

Reduce the number of POs, even to the point of eliminating them all together. Reassign purchase order processing to the user departments or automate it. Once the all encompassing major contract is in place, use draw down slips, the telephone, procurement cards to place the order.

When the products needed are covered by an existing contract, Purchasing should not be involved with the order or payment processes. Purchasing professionals should be kept busy establishing new master agreements, training users, administering existing contracts, identifying items for long term contracts, keeping abreast of current and future concepts, and their continuing education.

Purchasing, in conjunction with a cross-functional team, can identify the major suppliers, then bid or negotiate an all-encompassing agreement that can be utilized by the user. Purchasing should be responsible for monitoring or administrating these major agreements.

Purchasing should remain responsible for procurement of all items not contained in the major contracts. These procurements should fall within existing buyer authority, or be so small that the item may even be purchased without competition by a user via a credit card or petty cash.

To be effective, Purchasing must be included in the planning stages of all major projects and acquisitions. They are the best source of cross-functional information for the entire plant or entity, and should be able to offer procurement expertise on how to accomplish the purchase efficiently, timely and at the best cost.

Purchasing should receive invitations to high level meetings, be included on the circulation list of written information, and make and receive daily one-minute oral updates to help the Purchasing staff be an effective contributor to the success of the entity or company. The Purchasing Manager needs to cultivate information opportunities with all individuals in upper management. This valuable asset is gained through trust and confidence.

Here there is a strategy, which makes processes, which is implemented through a technology, in an organization and if the strategy is good it will become a culture. So these all steps are recementing which has to be done by purchase department which is an example of Re-engineering.

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FINANCIAL RE-ENGINEERING

Financial Re-engineering is the recementing or changing of products, systems, people, brands and technology which has to be done with financial restructuring and financial requantification of every qualitative business variable. Such type of recementing is called as ‘Financial Re-engineering.

Financial Re-engineering therefore may be approximately defined as a conscious effort to recement products, systems, brands, people and technology, to serve a redefined purpose on a sustainable basis, because most of the reengineering exercises are carried out with an impulsive reaction to the market variables or internal problems. Some reengineering exercises prove to be very idealistic, and hence are inappropriate and very expensive. Organizations carry out the process of reengineering, without a time-bound program and without detail planning. The management of the process of reengineering, post reengineering results, the overall cost-benefit analysis of each phase and the impact of reengineering have all to be worked out ; optimistic, moderate and pessimistic projections. The new purpose and the required dose of reengineering need to be quantitatively and qualitatively well defined.

OBJECTIVES AND BENEFITS

Objectives

The key objectives of the Finance Re-engineering are: Facilitation of the New Budget Framework;

Standardize University financial processes, reporting and communication ;

Identification, review and improvement of key process controls;

Improve the efficiency and accuracy of financial data capture;

Introduce structures to facilitate future introduction of project costing and

provide more useful and reliable information to a wide range of decision

makers;

Reduce the number of cost centre’s in the General Ledger;

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Reduce the number of and reorganize item codes; and

Improve financial (statutory) and management reporting.

Benefits

The introduction of the reengineered Finance system, together with process improvements and a new reporting framework will lead to transformation day-to-day financial operations.

Ease of Access Benefit - Improvements in the availability and accessibility of financial reporting through the establishment of easier “one stop” access to financial detail.

Ease of Analysis Benefit - Improved cross-University results analysis as a direct outcome of reusability and homogeneity of key financial processes and measures.

Better Decision Making Benefit - Enhanced financial management capability through a standardized budgeting and reporting approach that provides visibility of gross contribution.

Research Reporting Benefit - Improved visibility of research project activity and contribution.

Risk Management Benefit - Identification and implementation of key process controls, with resultant improvement to operational risk profiles.

Continuous Improvement Benefit - Improved “process capability” through a thorough grasp of the processes - reflected in an enhanced ability to mould and evolve practices in accordance with internal and external needs.

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HOLISTIC APPROACH TO INNOVATIVE FINANCIAL ENGINEERING

A strategist should always apply innovations to financial products and processes, keeping in mind the holistic design of an entire business process. The connection between the two phases of this process has to be perceived in the light of all the phases of the process, along with the external variables. The holistic approach may be summarized as follows:

Benchmarking of the earning-expectations

Product and process choices

Funding structure (variations, costs and flexibility)

Fund-deployment strategies

Monitoring and assessment systems

Programmes and policies to reward various stakeholders

Satisfaction of the shareholders

Perpetual sustenance of the financial and real growth of the business enterprise

The financial iterations and algorithms may take the shapes and combinations like as follows:

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The relationships among the different phases could be:

1. Real financial,

2. Notional financial and

3. Physical financial.

This may be illustrated as follows:-

Let us see the relationship between 1 and 2, i.e. benchmarking of the earning expectations and choices of products and processes. The ‘real financial’ rate may be an ROI of 15%. A notional ROI on each product and process should be the subject matter of financial engineering. Break-up of such product-wise notional ROI would depend on benchmarked ratios of efficiency in using physical resources, i.e. ‘plant capacity usage per employee per working day’ is a physical ratio to be related to financial results. Another advantage of converting a notional financial ratio into a physical ratio is that technocrats in the organization would be very comfortable with the physical expression of a financial ratio. Very often finance executive talk about ‘5/3’ as a benchmarked ratio, which could be ‘x/y’ for the technocrats. Unfortunately the parity between these two ratios is not adequately understood by the finance executives or the technocrats. Therefore, a holistic approach for framing corporate strategies cannot be adopted by the top executives.

VARIOUS FORMS OF RE-ENGINEERING

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Re-engineering, the radical redesign of business processes and organisational structure is consist of various forms which are as follows:-

1. Financial Restructuring 2. Corporate Restructuring

a. Mergers /Acquisitionsb. Divestituresc. Demergers

Let us have a look at each of the forms of re-engineering specifically:-

1) FINANCIAL RESTRUCTURING

Companies have access to a range of sources from which they finance business. These funds are called ‘capital’. The sources of capital can be divided into two categories; internally generated funds and funds provided by third parties. Whichever form of capital is used, it will fall into one of the two categories - debt or equity. A company should always try to seek a balance between its debt and equity in its capital structure and the funding of the resulting deficit. The targets a company sets in striking this balance are influenced by business conditions, which seldom remain constant. When, during the life time of a company, any of the following situations arise, the Board of Directors of a company is compelled to think and decide on the company’s financial restructuring:

Necessity for injecting more working capital to meet the market demand for the company’s products or services; when the company is unable to meet its current commitments; when the company is unable to obtain further credit from suppliers of raw materials, consumable stores, bought-out components etc. and from other parties like those doing job work for the company.

When the company is unable to utilize its full production capacity for lack of liquid funds.

Financial restructuring of a company involves a rearrangement of its financial structure to make the company’s finances more balanced.

2) CORPORATE RESTRUCTURING

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Corporate restructuring is one of the most complex and phenomena that management confronts. Each company has two opposing strategies from which to choose: to diversify or to refocus on its core business. From this perspective, corporate re-structuring is a reduction in diversification. Corporate restructuring entails a range of activities including portfolio restructuring, financial restructuring and organizational restructuring. Accordingly, portfolio or asset restructuring involves the redeployment of corporate assets through divestitures of business lines that are considered peripheral to the core business strategy. Significant changes in a corporation’s capital structure are termed financial restructuring. In organizational restructuring, the focus of change is on management and internal corporate governance structures.

MEANING OF MERGER AND ACQUISITION During the last two decades or so, the global industrial landscape had been completely redrawn by the forces of globalization, deregulation and unprecedented technological development. Companies have responded to the competitive pressures unleashed by these forces through extensive repositioning programmes involving mergers, acquisitions, alliances, divestitures and demergers. Back home in India most Indian companies and business groups would seem to have been caught unawares initially by the momentous and rapid changes brought about by the economic reforms. However after the tentativeness of the early years of reform, several of them would seem to have come to terms with the new realities of an intensively competitive domain and have been undertaking extensive restructuring both at the operational and at the strategic levels. As Indian companies stand on the threshold of the next phase of growth it is inevitable that several of them would find themselves required to make more decisive choices in respect of the portfolio of businesses in their stable. In the process, Indian companies – public sector included – would be increasingly called upon to pursue focused growth through mergers and acquisition on the one hand, and divestiture and demerger on the other.

MERGER

A transaction where two firms agree to integrate their operations on a relatively coequal basis because they have resources and capabilities that together may create a stronger competitive advantage

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ACQUISITION

A transaction where one firm buys another firm with the intent of more effectively using a core competence by making the acquired firm a subsidiary within its portfolio of businesses.

Reasons for acquisitions:-

Increased market power Overcome entry barriers Cost of new product development Increased speed to market Lower risk compared to developing new products Increased diversification Avoid excessive competition

Attributes of Effective Acquisitions:-

Low-to-Moderate DebtMerged firm maintains financial flexibility

FlexibilityHas experience at managing change and is flexible and adaptable

Emphasize Innovation Continue to invest in R&D as part of the firm’s overall strategy

CASE STUDY ON MERGER AND ACQUISITION OF HINDALCO AND NOVELIS

The case discusses the acquisition of US-Canadian aluminum company Novelis by India-based Hindalco Industries Limited (Hindalco), a part of Aditya Vikram Birla Group of Companies, in May 2007. The case explains the acquisition deal in detail and highlights the benefits of the deal for both the companies.It also examines the valuation of the acquisition deal and how the deal was financed. The case concludes by describing the challenges that Hindalco would face in integrating the operations of Novelis and analyzing if the deal was overvalued as opined by some industry experts.

Hindalco Industries Ltd has informed BSE that Novelis Inc. on May 15, 2007 has announced the completion of its acquisition by the Company. The transaction makes the Company with Novelis, the world’s largest aluminum rolled products Company and one of the largest producers of primary aluminum in Asia, as well as being India's leading copper producer. Novelis will operate as a subsidiary of the Company. The Company entered into an agreement with Novelis, dated February 10, 2007, to acquire the Company in an all-cash transaction which values Novelis at approximately US $ 6.0

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billion, including debt. Under the terms of the agreement, Novelis shareholders will receive US $ 44.93 in cash for each outstanding common share. Novelis shareholders approved the transaction at a special meeting on May 10. Based in Mumbai, India, the Company is the flagship Company of the Aditya Birla Group, a multinational conglomerate with annual revenue of US $ 14 billion and a market capitalization in excess of US $ 23 billion. The transaction was accomplished by way of a statutory plan of arrangement under Canadian law. The Company through its wholly-owned subsidiary AV Metals Inc. acquired 75,415,536 common shares of Novelis, representing 100 percent of the issued and outstanding common shares. Immediately after closing, AV Metals Inc. transferred the common shares of Novelis to its wholly-owned subsidiary AV Aluminum Inc. Novelis’ stock has ceased trading on the New York Stock Exchange. De-listing on the New York Stock Exchange and the Toronto Stock Exchange is expected to occur shortly.

ABOUT NOVELIS

Novelis is the world leader in aluminum rolling, producing an estimated 19 percent of the world's flat-rolled aluminum products. They are the No. 1 rolled products producer in Europe, South America and Asia, and the No. 2 producer in North America. Novelis is a global leader in the production of aluminum rolled products market. It has operations in four continents comprised of 34 operating facilities in 11 countries.

The company caters to markets like:

a. Building and constructionb. Cans and closuresc. Flexible and semi-rigid packagingd. Printing and Lithographye. Specialty Consumer and Industrialf. Automotive and Transportation

g. Distribution Servicesh. Technology sales.

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With industry-leading assets and technology, they produce the highest-quality aluminum sheet and foil products for customers in high-value markets including automotive, transportation, packaging, construction and printing. Their customers include major brands such as Agfa-Gevaert, Alcan, Anheuser-Busch, Ball, Coca-Cola, Crown Cork & Seal, Daching Holdings, Ford, General Motors, Lotte Aluminum, Kodak, Pactiv, Rexam, Ryerson Tull, Tetra Pak , ThyssenKrupp and others.

Novelis is also the world leader in the recycling of used aluminum beverage cans. Annually, we recycle more than 35 billion used beverage cans -- enough to circle the earth more than 100 times.

Novelis is globally positioned, operating in 11 countries with approximately 12,900 employees. In 2006, the company reported net sales of $9.8 billion.

ABOUT HINDALCO

Hindalco, based in Mumbai, India, is one of the most cost-efficient aluminum producers globally. Hindalco’s stock is publicly traded on the Bombay Stock Exchange, the National Stock Exchange of India Limited and the Luxembourg Stock Exchange. Hindalco is the flagship company of the Aditya Birla Group, a $14

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billion multinational conglomerate, with a market capitalization in excess of $23 billion

A key tenet of Hindalco's strategy is continuous growth. The Company has taken two major initiatives in this direction in the recent past. In 1999, the company acquired a 74.6% controlling stake in Indian Aluminum Co. Ltd. (INDIAL), a leader in the alumina and semi-fabricated business. The second of the initiatives was a brownfield expansion of facilities at a cost of Rs. 1800 Crores. The expansion added 100,000 TPA to Smelting Capacity along with a 210,000 TPA increase in Alumina Rifining Capacity and matching augmentation of Power Generation Capacity

SYNERGY:-The reason behind the merger .

The combination of Hindalco and Novelis will establish a global integrated aluminum producer with low-cost alumina and aluminum production facilities combined with high-end aluminum rolled product capabilities. The complementary expertise of both these companies will create and provide a strong platform for sustainable growth and ongoing success.

A strategy lies behind the proposed merger between India's largest aluminum producer, Hindalco Industries, and Canada's Novelis the biggest producer of flat-rolled aluminum products, whose customers include Coca-Cola Anheuser-Busch and General Motors.

With Hindalco's own cheap supplies of bauxite and coal, the purchase of a downstream producer like Novelis, which was spun off from Alcan (nyse: AL - news - people ) after its former U.S. parent bought Pechiney of France in 2004, would make Hindalco the same sort of integrated producer that many oil companies strove to be in the 1990s.

This will not only help Hindalco penetrate highly valued US and other western markets (Novelis has operations in 11 countries) but also help the shareholders to regain their investment (Novelis is presently a loss making company).

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Both the companies involved in the merger action are present leaders in their respective markets; Hindalco in the low cost aluminum production and Novelis in the aluminum rolled products.

The most important synergy that the companies can be looking for with this merger is the fact that Novelis is a producer of aluminum products whereas Hindalco is the lowest cost base metal producer in the world as far as aluminum is concerned.

Before the merger the issue with Novelis was to procure raw material from the market, which it converts into value-added products at the most reasonable prices. Hindalco on the other side has announced capacity expansion plans in a major way in the coming three to five years. Once that is done, it can supply the raw material to Novelis at a very economic cost as Novelis does not produce the inputs to its process (aluminum) in part or whole. This will help Novelis in bringing down its cost of production, particularly at a time when metal prices, particularly aluminum are running strong, which in turn will help Novelis to improve upon its margins and it will get reflected in the balance sheets of both the companies.

Hindalco’s motive behind this merger action has been the major market share that Novelis possesses. For Hindalco to build such a big market presence as that of Novelis by its own would had taken a very long time, which is the reason why this would be a very advantageous move for Hindalco as far as company strategy is concerned. One of the matters of concern for Novelis right now is the price that it is paying to have got into contracts with some major clients.

According to this contract, Novelis will provide cans at a price which is tapped, beyond which Novelis will incur the cost. With aluminum

prices going over through the roof, Novelis has to bear it all. From the performance reports, it was evident that Novelis had incurred huge

losses which will tend to decrease as most of its contracts with tapped prices will get over by the end of 2007. Along with this, if the

aluminum prices go down in the coming months, it would add to the

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profitability of the group companies.

RISKS ASSOCIATED

The risk associated in the merger of these two entities is perceived to be a little higher on account of the sheer size of the two companies. There has been a school of thought which says that Hindalco which paid a price of about 6 billion USD is a little too much for the merger. This was one of the reasons for the poor performance of Hindalco stocks after the merger took place. But with three months into the merger it is too primitive to comment on whether the merger has been a success for the two companies or not. The major risk that can be associated as of now for both companies are the post-merger integration issues for the two companies. Also one of the reasons which lead to an immediate fall in the prices of for Hindalco is the fact that Novelis has a high amount of debt which is in the range of 2.33 billion US dollars and a debt to equity ratio of 7:1. Strategy wise, hindalco will try its level best to provide Novelis with raw aluminum at the lowest possible prices but the effect of Hindalco’s raising debt for the merger on Novelis’s books and its effect on the consolidated balance sheet of Hindalco is a matter of concern for most investors. Also in the backdrop of increasing prices of Aluminum, Hindalco will gain but Novelis will be at a loss considering the contracts with the clause of tapped prices for supplying aluminum cans is concerned. So there is a possibility that the performance of the two companies may be completely opposite to each other

The counterview to the argument that deal being over-priced is that Hindalco is getting a ready-made market, ready-made customers, ready product profile and its size has also tripled by the merger. Here economies of scale are to make a big impact on the extend of

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success of the merger. For Hindalco, technology and process leadership, cost-effective manpower and ready market will help rationalize the cost structures and balance the pressure on the bottom lines.

THE DEAL

Hindalco has acquired Novelis in an all-cash transaction which values Novelis at approximately US$6 billion, including approximately US $2.40 billion of debt. Under the terms of the agreement, Novelis shareholders will receive US $44.93 in cash for each outstanding common share roughly 15 per cent premium to the market price

AV Metals — the A V Birla group's Canada-based special purpose vehicle (SPV) - will infuse US$ 3.5 billion to finance Hindalco's proposed acquisition. Putting aside the US$ 2.4 billion debt burden of Novelis, the cash component for financing the deal stands at US$ 3.5 billion.

Of this amount, AV Metals will take loans worth US$ 2.8 billion from three financial institutions, namely UBS, ABN Amro and Bank of America. This includes a bridge loan of US$ 1.4 billion at a coupon rate of 7.2 percent. These three institutions have underwritten the debt amount with UBS taking care of the majority portion. UBS is the financial advisor to Hindalco.

Essel Mining & Industries, a closely held company of the group, will bring in US$ 300 million while Hindalco will mobilize US$ 450 million from its treasury operations.

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Hindalco would need at least 10 years to replace Novelis' assets, which have a replacement value of US$ 12 billion

Novelis' revenues stood at $8.5 billion in 2005 and it posted net loss of $102 million during the third quarter of 2006 (the calendar year is the company's fiscal year). It is a widely held company and its shareholders are largely hedge funds and institutional investors. The company operates in 11 countries, has 36 operating units and 12,500 employees. The deal would be financed through recourse debt of $2.8 billion. Hindalco's treasury would contribute $450 million, while SL Iron Ore Mining, another group company, would contribute $300 million as debt

Novelis already carries $2.4 billion of debt, of which $1 billion comprises term loans and $1.4 billion high-yield loans. The deal will lead to the debt-equity ratio of Hindalco going up. The ratio is at present at 0.2-0. Post-acquisition, over 50 per cent of the group's business could come from operations outside India, which is currently at 30 per cent.

THE OUTCOME OF THE DEAL FOR BOTH THE COMPANIES

The acquisition will help Hindalco to shorten the learning curve for technology, which was a need for Hindalco. Hindalco has strong presence in upstream and metal businesses, while Novelis is a world leader in downstream businesses. The combination will make us immune to the high volatility in commodities markets.

A recent research note from Merrill Lynch speculating on the possibility of such a deal said the negatives could outweigh the positives. Merrill analyst Vandana Luthra pointed out that during periods of rising aluminum prices, margins are sharply squeezed, as selling prices for finished product do not increase commensurately. For instance, price ceilings on beverage cans in the U.S. recently hurt Novelis margins - in the first nine months of 2006, the company lost US$ 170 million. "In my

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opinion, they are overpaying," said Stewart Specter, an aluminum-industry consultant with offices in New York and Florida. "It seems to me that US$ 6 billion is an awful big premium to pay for a messy operation."

According to Hindalco's Bhattacharya, the deal made strategic sense. "The Novelis acquisition will give us immediate scale and a global footprint," he said. Hindalco would need at least 10 years to replace Novelis' assets, which have a replacement value of US$ 12 billion, he said.

Hindalco would enter the Fortune 500 league three years before it was scheduled to do according to its internal targets.

Overseas operations already account for nearly 30 per cent of the group's revenue now and the Novelis acquisition would increase it to 40 per cent in three years

The group would now have operations in 14 countries — the US, UK, Thailand, Malaysia, Laos, Indonesia, Philippines, Egypt, Canada, Australia, China, Germany, Hungary and Portugal.

The acquisition of Novelis also means that the group would become the world's largest player in the downstream aluminum business involving value-added products.

The Novelis management will remain unchanged after the acquisition. Hindalco will take a call on joining the board later. There will be no job cuts at Novelis

RECOMMENDATIONS

Growth of M& A activity in the commodities sector was due to factors such as economic growth, international commodity prices, exports, growth of infrastructure, cheap labor etc.

There are risks involved which means that Hindalco should have before acquiring the company seen whether the

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operations of the other company is going in the feasible direction.

The deal showed losses at the earlier stage, it proved to be of strategic value in the long run. The merger would give Hindalco a global footprint, but it has to pay a price and spend time both for it.

For Hindalco, technology and process leadership, cost-effective manpower and ready market will help rationalize the cost structures and balance the pressure on the bottom lines

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Websites:-

1. www.google.com2. www.yahoo.com3. www.msn.com

Books:-

1. Business case studies