Monday, April 16, 2012

...Shibulal, do your own thing...

No sooner Infosys announced its Q4 2011-12 results with a lower guidance, than the market pundits started pummeling it for hoarding up all its cash and not going in for acquiring businesses. I am tempted to ask - What else will they do...?

The problem with stock market / industry analysts is that the so-called free strategic advisory they proffer is nothing but a leaf out of the consultants' manual that is the thinnest ever tome with a two-size-fit-all strategy. First, if they are hired by a diversified firm, the consultants would advise them to merge/consolidate/ integrate. And if the hirer is a single vertical behemoth, they'll say Break-it-down. With just this two options, they get a life, ruining the clients' own. If you guys know a third strategy a consultant has, feel free to write in.

Now they see Infy sitting with a cash pile of Rs.20,500 crore (Roughly $ 4 billion) and they are urging it to acquire businesses. Why wouldn't they ever concede that if a company management was smart enough to pile all that cash up, wouldn't it know when and where to deploy it...? We all know the major acquisitive frenzy unleashed by Wipro with its string-of-pearls strategy got it - to the 4th or 5th place in the pecking order from its 3rd place after TCS and Infy. Like a good hunter, Infosys should wait for a right synergistic acquisition that falls in line with its future growth projections. Sitting on a cash pile is any day better than soaking it up into a bad big-bang deal and going down with it. Infosys CEO S.D.Shibulal is a veteran and I think the decision is better left to him. I am sure Infosys will get its act together, in time...