It was a big day for the Aditya Birla Group.
On Thursday, the group’s metals arm Hindalco announced a deal to acquire US-based alAleris for $2.58 billion. Also, its telecom business Idea Cellular received final approval from the government to merge with Vodafone India. The group has also recently made acquisitions in the cement space and ramped up its financial services business.
India’s growth story is coming back strongly, said Group Chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla.
In an interview with BusinessLine, he said: “Our economists expect India to grow at over 8 per cent and it will be one of the fastest growing countries. It is back on strong fundamentals. Some of the sectors are coming back strongly. Rising lending rates and inflation will have an impact but not enough to hamper growth completely. It is part of doing business in any part of the world.”
“If we are in a business, it’s a focus area for us. Otherwise we would rather not be in it. Investment decisions also depend on opportunities. There are opportunities in every business — it could be organic or inorganic, the idea being value creation,” Birla said when asked the group’s about focus areas going forward.
On the merger with Vodafone, he said: “We will start operations in a few weeks. We are still in the process of framing the strategy, which will be revealed soon. We will make substantial investments in the telecom sector going forward.”