Indian companies are increasingly turning to overseas acquisitions as growth momentum slows at home, according to a report by the BBC.
In one of the biggest deals of the year, Sun Pharmaceutical Industries agreed in late April to acquire New York-listed women’s healthcare and biosimilars company Organon & Co. for $11.75 billion (£8.59 billion).
The BBC reported that the deal marked the largest overseas acquisition by an Indian company in nearly two decades and came amid a series of major international purchases by Indian firms.
These include Tata Motors acquiring Turin-based vehicle manufacturer Iveco for $4.4 billion, IT services company Coforge purchasing Silicon Valley-based AI firm Encorafor $2.35 billion, and the Bajaj Group acquiring a 23% stake in global insurance giant Allianz SE earlier in 2025.
According to data shared with the BBC by consultancy Grant Thornton, 162 Indian companies spent over $18 billion on outbound acquisitions in 2025, marking a 34% rise compared to the previous year. “We could cross $15bn in deal value in just the first half of this year,” Sumeet Abrol, partner and national leader at Grant Thornton, told the BBC.
For many observers, the latest overseas buying spree has drawn comparisons with the global acquisition wave led by Indian conglomerates such as the Tata Group in the early 2000s, when it acquired global assets like Jaguar Land Roverand Corus Group.
However, analysts told the BBC that the motivations behind the current trend are different. Indian firms are no longer buying Western companies merely as status symbols of global ambition but increasingly for strategic and operational advantages.
The broader economic climate in India has also shifted significantly since the last acquisition boom. During the earlier phase, India was witnessing a strong bull market.
Today, the country faces a sharp outflow of foreign portfolio investment, slowing foreign direct investment inflows, and weak private sector investment despite government incentives such as tax cuts and production-linked subsidies.
“Corporate profits [of India's top 500 companies post-Covid] grew at 30.8% per annum. But still, our overall capital formation rates from the private sector have been disappointing,” India’s Chief Economic Advisor V Anantha Nageswaran recently said at a policy conference, according to the BBC.
Experts told the BBC that the growing push overseas reflects rising dissatisfaction with India’s domestic business environment, alongside opportunities abroad for diversification and capability expansion.
“There is plenty of Indian money heading abroad. Even among the companies that we own in our portfolio, many are setting up greenfield factories in the US and other places where industrial land is almost free and accessing working capital is much easier than here,” Saurabh Mukherjea of Marcellus Investment Managers told the BBC.
Mukherjea also noted that the trend is not limited to large conglomerates. While the Sun Pharma acquisition and reports of tycoon Mukesh Ambani backing a proposed $300 billion oil refinery project in Brownsville — announced by Donald Trump but not publicly confirmed by the Ambani family — remain among the highest-profile examples, smaller Indian firms are also actively pursuing overseas investments and acquisitions. “Dozens of smaller Indian companies are making similar greenfield investments or pursuing smaller acquisitions,” Mukherjea told the BBC.
According to Neha Singh, co-founder of data intelligence company Tracxn, stronger corporate balance sheets and easier access to international financing are supporting the trend.
“Indian companies are increasingly looking overseas to access markets, brands, technology capabilities, R&D expertise, and established distribution networks that may otherwise take years to build organically,” Singh said, as quoted by the BBC.
Experts also told the BBC that companies are accelerating overseas acquisitions to protect supply chains in an increasingly uncertain global environment where trade tariffs and geopolitical chokepoints are being used strategically.
However, overseas deals can sometimes become financial burdens. Mukherjea pointed to Tata Steel’s acquisition of Corus Steel as an example, describing it as an “albatross” around the company’s neck for decades.
He also observed that Indian firms still struggle to finance such deals using equity. Even a massive acquisition like the Sun Pharma-Organon deal was conducted entirely in cash, which analysts say can pose significant financial risks.
Despite the challenges, analysts believe outbound acquisitions from India are unlikely to slow down. Mukherjea told the BBC that recently signed free trade agreements between India and countries such as the UK, Australia and several European nations could trigger a “deluge of outbound deals from India as companies head off to invest in the West to build up bases in the years to come”.
He further noted that many next-generation Indian business leaders are increasingly studying and living abroad, making it more logical for them to hold assets in foreign currencies, “especially because the rupee loses 40% of its value to the dollar every decade”.
At the same time, the BBC reported that overseas expansion may continue alongside “selective caution” toward large domestic investments, according to Singh. India remains trapped in a cycle of weak consumer demand and sluggish private investment, challenges that are now being compounded by global energy shocks and concerns over the impact of agentic AI on the country’s already fragile job market.
Whether Indian firms will surpass last year’s $18 billion outbound acquisition figure remains uncertain due to what Abrol described to the BBC as the current “geopolitical air pocket”.
However, experts believe the broader direction is becoming increasingly clear: Indian companies are likely to continue hedging against economic uncertainty at home, even as the government works to curb dollar outflows and attract foreign capital to revive domestic growth.
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