Intuition. Perception. Perfection.

     The closing decades of the twentieth century saw the predatory M&A culture at its zenith. Hostile takeovers, poison pills, Pac-Man defences, greenmail, activist investors, white knights, black knights and bidding wars were the order of the day, at a time when the American markets were on a major bull run. And then, somewhere along the way, after the East Asian financial crisis, the Dotcom Bubble and the Financial Crisis that spanned the last and first decades of the twentieth and twenty first centuries respectively, the world of M&A suddenly became a less exciting place to live in. Hostile takeovers lost their flavour, companies built up their defences, shareholder activism gained prominence in the wake of sloppy results at several companies and private equiteers preferred working with managements rather than trying to depose them, even as the world grappled with increased uncertainty over the past decade. But now, with the global markets gaining steam, big...

      The article you are about to read stems from a conversation that yours truly had with a global trading conglomerate’s top honcho at the ‘47 th St. Gallen Symposium 2017 – The Dilemma of Disruption’ (yup, qualified, made the cut and made the long trip to snowy, sexy and oh-so-lovely St. Gallen, Switzerland again... 'Global Top 20 Leader of Tomorrow’ this time around. You can read all about the first time as a ‘Global Top 100 Leader of Tomorrow’ at the ‘46 th St. Gallen Symposium 2016 – Growth: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly’ here ).      The gentleman remarked, “McKinsey isn’t really a popular name in Switzerland because thanks to it, the one company with the name ‘Swiss’ isn’t Swiss anymore.”      But back in the day, it was. It was as Swiss as Swiss could be. Swissair was a national icon and a matter of pride to its country. It was the world’s leading airline and so strong were its financials that it was even dubbed th...

     Murphy’s Law states that anything that can go wrong will go wrong. In India’s case, more often than not, Murphy’s Law does seem to ring true. And worryingly, it seems to be happening on quite a regular occasion in these times. No sooner than one crisis is seen off and the dust settled and the Indian markets ready themselves to resume on the path to growth, does another one rear its ugly head. Simply put, the long awaited Indian Bull Run may be quite some time away.      In the world of the bourses, the rear view mirror is always clearer than the windscreen. And while the markets have inched up and generated mediocre returns over the past few years, valuations have simply taken off and run far ahead of fundamentals. Needless to say, until the fundamentals do catch up and justify the valuations, a Bull Run won’t materialize anytime soon.       As the past has shown, whenever the markets seem ready to blast ...