A Trial by Fire

Two years ago, Baba Kalyani saw his company Bharat Forge besieged by an unprecedented slowdown in the automobile industry. Even earlier, he had realised that an operation serving only car makers would limit his company's growth. And he had started a plan to derisk the business with new revenue streams in energy, transportation and construction sectors. When the slowdown came, he used it as a test bed for his new strategy. Today, revenues from non-automotive sectors are increasing, pitting the world's largest forging company in a high stakes game against giants like Larsen & Toubro and BHEL.

Vedanta's Energy Philosophy

In its most ambitious move so far, the Anil Agarwal promoted Vedanta plc has mounted a $9.6 billion bid for Cairn India. Lack of growth in the metals business has driven Agarwal to oil. The idea is to diversify its revenues from the metals and mining business to oil and gas. Though Cairn plc's decision to sell a substantial part of its stake to Vedanta has not gone down too well with the Indian government, Vedanta is betting its balance sheet on making the acquisition work.