HCL counter bid: it's yesterday once more

There was a feeling of dejavu when HCL Technologies made a counter bid for Axon Plconlate Friday evening.

India should remember the fierce battle waged by Mittal Steel and Tata Steel to acquire Arcelor and Corus a couple of yearsago.

With only a few hours remaining for Infosys to make its counter bid, the HCL Axon-Infosys saga could be equally action packed.In August,Infosys had made an offer to acquire Axon for £407 million.

Axon, for which HCL topped Infosys' bid by around 8% (£441 million), will mark the largest overseas acquisition by an Indian company in the IT space. However, it would also be the first time two Indian corporate houses have gotten into a bidding war.

After HCL upped its bid by 50 pence a share, Infosys had 60 hours to make a counteroffer,which expires on Monday.Industry experts feel that Infosys will not bow out soon as the senior management must have factored in a counter offer before making the first bid.

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Vodafone may enter MTN race

The bidding war for South African telecom major MTN may have just started, with the largest telecom company by revenues, Vodafone, too eyeing MTN. According to foreign media reports, the company is examining a £20 billion ($39.02 billion) bid for MTN.

However, a Vodafone spokesperson told a foreign news agency in London that, “we have no intention of pursuing a bid for MTN.” Vodafone is the second largest mobile operator with about 250 million subscribers worldwide and acquisition of MTN would add the latter’s 68 million users to its fold, taking it closer to China Mobile, which is the world’s largest mobile company by subscriber base close to 400 million.

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