Mkt opportunity, asset drives Indian cos' overseas buyouts

Indian companies primarily look for new market opportunities and assets while deciding on overseas buyouts rather than economic or cultural similarities with the home turf, says a report.

The study, by the Indian School of Business (ISB), focused on Indian companies having the most international exposure.

"... Indian transnational companies are predominantly driven by market-seeking and strategic asset-seeking behaviour while making overseas acquisitions," it said.

As per the study, factors such as geographical and cultural similarities are given less weightage at the time of making a decision on foreign acquisition by an Indian company.

Generally, companies prefer select acquisition targets in nations or regions that are similar -- geographically, economically, administratively and culturally -- to their home countries, it added.

Indian entities "seem to assign much lower weights to these distance factors when making acquisition decisions", the study, from ISBInsight, the school's quarterly research publication, said.

The conclusions are based on a survey conducted by ISB along with Brazil's Fundao Dom Cabral that ranked Indian companies that have the most international exposure.

ONGC Videsh has topped the list of 15 most internationalised Indian companies.

The rankings, that considered figures for fiscal ended March, 2012, were based on three factors: percentage of international assets against total assets, overseas revenues against total revenues and percentage of foreign employees with respect to total headcount.