Arrogance cost us some good deals: Ajay Piramal

Billionaire industrialist and investor Ajay Piramal is arguably one of the most successful investors, but admits that his arrogance has impacted his deal-making in the past.
"Everybody thinks that in terms of M&As, we are very good. And we seem to get the best value. But I have known and I can clearly (count) in front of me, one or two cases, where we missed out because of our arrogance, because of this 'we-are-the-best' attitude. Other times, we made a wrong acquisition only because of the 'we-are-the-best' attitude," Piramal said at a book launch here late last evening.
Piramal used his personal experiences to underscore the need for humility and added even though it is one of the core values of his group, digressing from it has cost it dear.

"Humility, we say, is very important because we feel humility means the ability to listen, the ability to respect another's opinion and to find that everybody around you in some subject knows more," the ace industrialist said.
"But I think, sometimes we also get carried away. That's where I have found that we have not been successful," Piramal added.
He was quick to add if his group had stuck to its core value of humility, these mistakes could have been avoided.

After exiting pharma business, Piramal has been one of the busiest on the deal street, and has invested in diverse sectors including telecom, realty and financial services.

One of his most successful investments was the 11 per cent stake he picked up in Vodafone India, which he exited at a 52 per cent premium in three years for Rs 8,900 crore against the investment by Piramal Enterprises of Rs 5,864 crore between August, 2011 and February, 2012.
Now he owns 10 per cent in Shriram Transport after picking up the stake for Rs 1,652 crore from TPG in May 2013, and also owns 20 per cent in Shriram Capital worth over Rs 2,071 crore.
Piramal was speaking during a panel discussion after the launch of his niece Aparna Piramal Raje's book 'Working Out of the Box', which had India Inc's top CXOs talk about the design of their corner offices and work-life balance.

TCS chief N Chandrasekaran said he travels exhaustively, meeting up to 500 clients a year. A recent restructuring exercise has made sure that he has minimal role in decision-making as they are taken by a broader set of people in the top tier. This set in turn meets once every month where most of the issues get discussed, he said.
Axis Bank's Shikha Sharma said she opted for spacious interiors at the bank's head office in central Mumbai to drive home the message of transparency and added that the bank is more transparent now than it was when she joined it.