One compelling illustration of India’s domestic story comes in the M&A market. The landmark deals of the moment are no longer mainly cross-border, Indian companies reaching out to acquire scale or technology overseas; instead they are mainly India buying India, helped by a powerful private-capital pool at home.
“Most Indian corporates have realized that India itself is a big opportunity,” says Ravi Kapoor, head of global banking India at Citi, who now expects only selective outbound M&A. “Why would you leave an opportunity in your backyard and go searching for it around the world?”
On top of this, both companies and banks raised plentiful capital at the start of the Covid pandemic, expecting to need it but finding for the most part that they did not.
