The session started off with Mr. Manikkan giving a brief overview on the basic functions that come under the Investment Banking practice. These could be broadly divided across Equity and Debt. Equity services include M&A; Advisory, Corporate Restructuring Advisory, Private Equity, Privatization and Privatization. Debt services include Project Finance Advisory, Loan Syndication and Treasury.

Mr. Manikkan spoke about the increasing volumes of M&A; deals in India, which has increased to over $400 billion each year. Of these over 70% were cross border deals, and within these deals an overwhelming proportion were outbound deals.

There are a variety of factors driving such deals like Strategic Drivers, Financial Drivers and even Emotional Drivers. Benefits of such deals manifest themselves in the form of economies of scale and scope, backward/forward integration, product diversification, and eliminating or reducing competition to improve profitability.

Various transaction dynamics and transaction mechanics were explained which included the critical success factors, instruments used for payment; various deal structures and the deal process. Mr. Manikkan also touched upon the key success factors in a deal closure which range from the transaction structure to managing personalities and value expectations.

The batch got an in-depth look at some of the most high profile M&A; deals in the session. These included the Tata-Corus deal, Mylan Laboratories acquisition of majority stake in Matrix Labs, Suzlon’s takeover of RE Power in Germany and the privatization deal of the Sabiha Gokcen International Airport in Istanbul, Turkey.

This was followed by session of Q&A; with the audience. The entire session was extremely enriching with the batch having had the opportunity to look some of the practical aspects of deal making in the vibrant M&A; space in India.