‘Hostility from other side persuaded us to look at Mindtree’

For a company that thwarted a takeover bid in the late 1980s, life has come a full circle for L&T as it girds to acquire IT services firm Mindtree. BusinessLine met L&T CEO SN Subrahmanyan (SNS) and R Shankar Raman (RSR), Wholetime Director and Chief Financial Officer, to understand why the deal matters. Excerpts:

Way back, L&T itself was a target of a takeover. Now the role has reversed. Is there a change in how L&T looks at takeovers or is everything fair in business?

SNS: About six years back I am told the present management of Mindtree, founders, approached the then L&T management and asked, “Can you buy our stake?”. We did not show interest for two reasons: