India's share, in cross-border M&As remains very low as the degree of openness is perceived to be low by the overseas investors, although the liberalisation programme has progressed considerably, says Mr Bhoi. He laments that there is a virtual absence of empirical work on the impact of M&As in India for two reasons. First, there is severe data limitation that prohibits any meaningful empirical research in this area. Secondly, M&A being a recent phenomenon, adequate data points are not available to undertake serious empirical research.According to the report, the underlying motivations behind M&As are many.

Therefore, it would be difficult to evaluate the success or failure of a merger or acquisition in terms of any single yardstick. Nevertheless, distinct merger waves across the world are real corporate events, which need to be reckoned with.

Of late, cross-border M&As have emerged as an important mode of entry, as far as the foreign direct investment is concerned. Most of the countries by now, have adopted suitable regulatory system, particularly competition policy, to reduce the negative effects of M&As, adds the report.

In the corporate history of India, the first merger wave is underway. This has assumed strong momentum in the post-liberalisation period, particularly in the second half of the 90s. The progress with respect to capital account convertibility has been gradual. The infrastructure bottlenecks are still a major problem. The second generation reforms, particularly the real sector reforms, are underway. A competition policy is being formulated which would take care of the issue of market dominance.

``Although quick and radical reforms have downside risks, opportunities should not be lost, so that there could be an early restructuring of the Indian industries. This would not only increase productivity in the industrial sector, but also address balance of payments problems in a number of ways,'' comments the report.