In March,India Inc. invested $2.7 bn overseas.

Overseas investments by Indian companies stood at USD 2.77 billion in March, up 37.6 percent over the previous month, with Binani Industries, Mercator Lines, HCL Technologies, Varun Shipping, Hexaware Technologies, and Tata Steel emerging as major investors.

As many as 489 overseas investment transactions were carried out by various companies in March, as per the Reserve Bank data released Wednesday. Binani Industries invested a total of USD 323.34 million in its two wholly-owned subsidiaries based in Luxembourg and the US that are involved in financial, real estate and manufacturing services.

Mercator Lines, which is into agriculture and mining, through its joint venture-Mercator Offshore PTE- invested USD 150.15 million in Singapore during the month, it said. ABG Shipyard, through its wholly-owned subsidiary invested USD 80 million in Singapore.

HCL Technologies, India’s fourth largest software exporter, invested USD 60 million in Bermuda through its wholly owned subsidiary for providing financial, insurance and real estate solutions.
Likewise, Varun Shipping which is into transport, storage and communication business invested USD 60 million via its JV in Cyprus.

Hexaware Technologies invested USD 38.7 million through its wholly-owned subsidiary in Germany to provide financial, insurance, real estate solutions, it said. Tata Steel invested USD 35.5 million in Singapore through its wholly-owned unit, it said.

India’s FDI increases

India’s FDI inflows reached to 41.5 billion dollars last year, constituting 9.6% of its gross fixed capital formation, against just 1.9% annual average in 90s.
India attracted 41.5 billion dollars in FDI last year, its outward flows or overseas investments amounted to 17.7 billion dollars, roughly 4.1% of its gross fixed capital formation. This is in sharp contrast to its meager annual average overseas investments of 110 million dollars for last decade, when such outward investments comprised 0.1% of its gross capital formation.
The FDI stocks of India, which were just 1.6 billion dollars in 1990, zoomed to 123.3 billion dollar in 2008, constituting 9.9% of GDP, against a paltry 0.5% of GDP in 1990. In the case of China, such FDI flows, which were 20.7 billion dollars in 1990, leapt to a whopping 378 billion dollars last year.
In the case of cross-border mergers and acquisitions, Indian companies’ net sales surged from an annual average of 282 million dollars during 90s to 4.4 billion dollars in 2007 and to 9.5 billion dollars in 2008. Against this, Indian companies’ purchases of overseas firms which averaged 104 million dollars annually between 90s rose to a peak of 29 billion dollars in 2007 and came down to 11.6 billion dollars last year in the wake of the onset of the global economic and financial crisis.
Two Indian companies, Tata Steel and ONGC, found a place among the top hundred non-financial transnational companies from developing countries, ranked by foreign assets in 2007.