Citigroup recently decided to sell its red umbrella logo back to Travelers. It has been interesting for me to read Sandy Weill’s autobiography ‘The Real Deal’ in this context.

This book is a fascinating recount of how Sandy Weill created his financial empire through numerous transactions including M&As, public offerings and corporate name changes. In his own words, “Always being prepared for the next deal had explained much of my success over the years.”

Commenting on integration challenges pursuant to Citicorp and Travelers merger, he says, “Unlike Traveler’s typical modus operandi where we determined management assignments ahead of time and where we placed a premium on accountability and fast decision making, our approach this time by necessity had to differ”.

His rendering of relations with his team, prodigies and family gives an interesting humane touch to the tale.

Reviews: BusinessWeek, Economist

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Gurcharan Das writes:

Homi Bhabha, the distinguished professor of English at Harvard, recently described India as a multi-lane highway. This is a happy metaphor, I think, because it captures nicely our diverse multilingual, multicultural, open society in which all are moving forward, albeit at different speeds.

Thanks to talented persons in the fast lane, India is now on the verge of becoming a world beater, even a champion, and this is happening after a thousand years. We ought to ensure now that those in the slow lane also get an equal start on the highway so that they too accelerate and change lanes at the right moment

Commenting on Indian government's proposal to expand capacity in higher education (instead of basic education), Mr. Das writes that:

[This] proposal, however, seeks to artificially push persons from the slower to the faster lanes. This will cause accidents on the road and all the lanes will slow down. When high performers observe persons with lower marks stealing ahead by unfair means, they are bound to lose heart. Some of their competitive spirit will die.

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The Economist reviews a book by Jean-Louis Bravard where he argues that:

Outsourcing should be treated much like M&A, for which it is in many cases a substitute. That means fully involving the company's top executives in outsourcing decisions, and expecting outsourcing to be subject to the same “degree of public and shareholder scrutiny” as M&A. It also means looking at many of the same things when judging whether a deal will work or not.

Further, "Five Key Areas to Focus On" include financial engineering, legal issues, communications, human resources and tax.

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