http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-1212419,curpg-5.cms


MUMBAI: Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani may be close to taking his—and India Inc’s—biggest step yet on the global stage. Speculation is rife that he is close to launching a bid for a $15-billion North America-based company, which in turn is a wholly-owned subsidiary of one of the world’s biggest multinational giants with a name that is synonymous with petroleum.

Two other global petrochemical giants are said to be interested in the company Reliance is eyeing. Sources say that unlike the $18.5-billion bid by China’s third-largest oil producer China Oil to buy California-based Unocal Corp, the competing bids are reckoned to be far more realistic, which gives Reliance a good chance of eventually bagging the deal.


Of course, it isn’t as if Reliance is banking on just one target. In case the deal does not go through, it has already lined up bids for two other petrochemical firms, one of them Canadian, with an annual sales of $1 billion. The deal size, though, is expected to be much smaller.

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Speech by Thomas Friedman of The New York Times....

"When we were young kids growing up in America, we were told to eat our
vegetables at dinner and not leave them. Mothers said, 'think of the
starving children in India and finish the dinner.' And now I tell my
children: 'Finish your maths homework. Think of the children in India
who would make you starve, if you don't.'"