The empire strikes back
Quite remarkable in the last week were the announced takeover of two UK firms by two Indian firms. It's all part of a growing trend of Indian companies to buy pieces of the British economy, once India's imperisl master.
First, Indian IT consulting giant Infosys announced it would buy Axon Group for $752 million. Axon is a London-based computer consulting company, which specializes in supporting software systems from Germany's SAP. Infosys currently has a large presence in outsourcing from the US, while Axon is strong in Europe. The deal is Infosys's largest ever.
Also last week, India's state-owned oil producer, ONGC, announced it would buy the UK's Imperial Energy. The deal is for $2.6 billion.
While Imperial is based in London, most of its assets are in Siberia, where it has a number of active wells. Aside from wells in India, ONGC has wells in Vietnam, Sudan, Columbia, and 14 other countries.
It's telling that India, like China, is buying up energy assets anywhere it can find them. In fact, there was some expectation that Chinese state oil company Sinopec might try to outbid ONGC, but Sinopec has apparently withdrawn.
It's telling that as Western companies are backing away from Russian investments, thanks in part to tensions between the US and Russia as well as arbitrary Russian resources policy, that India is eagerly jumping in.
9:42:20 PM 
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