Bharti Airtel had bid US$23 billion to take over MTN of South Africa, a major telecommunications company. If completed, the deal would become India's largest outbound deal to date, double the size of Tata Steel's $13 billion acquisition of Corus, the UK steel company, in 2006.However, the deal talks have been extended until the end of August and there is a cloud of uncertainty over the price and terms of the deal.
The talks come at a time of a substantial decrease in India's cross border M&A activity - it was reported that as of May, India's outbound deal flow had decreased by 95 per cent as compared with the same period in 2008, falling from $7.4 billion to $370.8 million. We have been taking a periodic look at India's outbound investments and will offer an update shortly.
Photo credit to Swamysk, whose photos are posted on Flickr
