Unprecedented bribery charges, farewells, separation, failed union, monumental mergers and record-breaking IPOs, along with a healthy dose of online happenings in the form of spat and lessons in customer care, corporate India saw it all in 2024.
In between the cycle of quarterly results and the chase for growth amid dynamic market conditions, India’s industry leaders reinforced their belief in the country as the best-placed nation in the world for future growth.
Even as new-age technologies such as AI, and machine learning remained the buzzword, the good old manufacturing got a thumbs up with “a new manufacturing golden age for India” on the horizon that has the potential to transform the country’s economy, as envisaged by Tata Sons chairman N Chandrasekaran.
The year will be remembered for two mega-mergers – Tata Group merged two airlines under its fold – Air India and Vistara – to form a single, full-service airline and left the sky with just two players.
Mukesh Ambani’s Viacom18 and Disney+ Hotstar merged to create one of the largest content-streaming powerhouses in India worth over Rs 70,000 crore.
The year also recorded listings and companies ranging from Bajaj Housing Finance, and Hyundai to Ola Electric coming out with initial public offerings (IPOs).
But the biggest news was infrastructure king Gautam Adani and aides being hit with an indictment in a US court in an alleged $265 million bribery scheme to win lucrative renewable energy contracts.
The allegations, which the Adani group denied as baseless and vowed to seek all possible legal recourse to counter, were the second crisis that it faced in as many years.
In 2023, US short-seller Hindenburg Research alleged accounting and financial fraud at Adani Group, charges that the group denied.
It wiped out nearly USD 150 billion in market value of the group’s listed entities.
Just as most costs recovered, Hindenburg in August 2024 cited whistleblower documents to allege that SEBI chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch had a stake in obscure offshore entities used in the Adani money siphoning scandal.
As Buch and Sebi denied any wrongdoing and the government appeared unwilling to become a party, the stock recovered but was again hit by the US court indictment in November.
While most of the years go down with happy memories, 2024 will be different as one of India’s most revered industrialists, Ratan Tata died on October 9 at the age of 86 years.
The death of the former chief of the over $165 billion Tata conglomerate, who perhaps enjoyed a unique status — a corporate titan considered a ‘secular living saint’ with a reputation for decency and integrity — left a void hard to be filled.
A little over a month later, Shashikant Ruia, a first-generation entrepreneur who co-founded the metals-to-technology conglomerate Essar with his brother Ravi, left the world at the age of 80 after a prolonged illness.
In a reminder about the fickleness of life, the founder of Drums Food International, the firm behind the popular Greek yoghurt brand Epigamia, Rohan Mirchandani, aged just 42, died due to cardiac arrest in December.
The year 2024 also saw a new beginning for the 127-year-old Godrej Group, with the founding family reaching an amicable agreement to split the conglomerate.
The Godrej family agreed to split their empire with Adi Godrej (82) and his brother Nadir (73) keeping Godrej Industries, which has five listed firms, while cousins Jamshyd (75) and Smita Godrej Crishna (74) getting unlisted Godrej & Boyce and its affiliates to be run under Godrej Enterprises Group and a land bank, including prime property in Mumbai.
In contrast, a proposed USD 10 billion merger between Culver Max Entertainment, formerly known as Sony Pictures Networks India, with Zee Entertainment collapsed in January, over two years after the partners announced their plans to come together, due to disagreement over who would lead the merged entity and failure to meet closing conditions.
Bitter legal battles at various courts followed but in August the two parties agreed to settle their dispute and withdrew all claims against each other.
Opposite to what their rivals did, Walt Disney Co and Reliance Industries completed the merger of their media operations in India in November after announcing their plan in February.
The JV is one the largest media and entertainment companies in India with a combined revenue of approximately Rs 26,000 crore, housing two streaming services and 120 television channels.
Meanwhile, in the cement industry, it was about acquisitions and the battle for supremacy between Adani Group’s Ambuja Cement and Aditya Birla Group’s flagship UltraTech Cement.
Ambuja Cement agreed to acquire CK Birla group firm Orient Cement in October in a Rs 8,100 crore deal, with an offer to buy 46.8 per cent of its founders including chairman CK Birla, and certain public shareholders for Rs 3,791 crore, triggering an open offer for an additional 26 per cent stake in Orient.
While Adani Group snapped up Penna Cement for Rs 10,422 crore in June last year and acquired Sanghi Industries Ltd for Rs 5,185 crore in December 2023, Aditya Birla Group’s UltraTech Cement had in July 2024 bought India Cements for Rs 3,945 crore.
Away from the brick-and-mortar, India’s tech entrepreneur and Ola founder, Bhavish Aggarwal got entangled in a war of words on social media platform X with stand-up comedian Kunal Kamra, who took up consumer complaints over after sales and service quality of the company’s electric scooters.
Subsequently, the Central Consumer Protection Authority issued a show cause notice to Ola Electric in October related to 10,644 complaints and in December further sought additional details over the company’s claims to have resolved the issues.
Unlike Aggarwal, Mahindra Group Chairman Anand Mahindra’s response to stinging criticism of the group’s vehicles on social media, taking it as a fuel of “hunger to succeed” won the hearts of netizens, even with fellow industrialist Harsh Goenka terming it a ‘masterclass’ in customer care.
Amid the action both offline and online, industry leaders reinforced their belief that India is the place to be in for future growth.
At the beginning of 2024, Aditya Birla Group chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla remarked that the economy’s vibrant energy was “looking like a wow” and the country is striding forward with unwavering optimism even as large pockets of the world remain engulfed in pessimism.
“This is the dynamism and energy of a young country and ancient civilization that has found its voice and footing,” he noted.
Similarly, auto industry stalwart and Maruti Suzuki India Chairman RC Bhargava said there is no other country in the world better placed than India in terms of future growth.
“I can’t see any country in the world today which has better prospects for the future than India has,” Bhargava stated at an event.
Just as the year was about to end, N Chandrasekaran announced that with global supply chains continuing to shift in India’s favour as the world’s largest businesses strike a new balance between resilience and efficiency, manufacturing has the potential to transform the economy.
In his New Year message to employees of the Tata Group, he termed it “a new manufacturing golden age for India” and said he was looking ahead to 2025 “with a sense of hope and optimism”.
