The news that jumped out at me this morning was the acquisition of Virgin Radio by an Indian company, the same company that owns the Times of India. This makes at least the third major acquisition of a European company by an Indian company in the last several months. Back in 2006, Europe’s biggest steelmaker, Arcelor, was bought by India’s Mittal Steel. More recently, Tata Motors bought Land Rover and Jaguar from Ford (just closed today). On Friday, an Indian metals company, Vedanta Resources, announced they were buying Asarco, a US coppering mining company.

It looks like each of these deals was logical and strategic for the companies involved. At the same time, there are larger trends in the background: the growing economy and consumer demands in India, and the increasing value of the rupee (and decreasing value of the US dollar). It seems likely that there will more Indian acquisitions of overseas companies coming.

As the Economist noted in January: “The latest trend reflects a new, fundamental shift. In a more open world, emerging economies are spawning their own giants. UNCTAD [UN Conference on Trade and Development] is turning its attention to the new shape of global business: investment now flows increasingly from south to north and south to south, as emerging economies invest both in the rich world and in less developed countries…The rest of the world has woken up to the newcomers in the past couple of years thanks to some huge cross-border deals.”

I think this is a tough wake-up call, at both the country and individual levels. We like to think that business is business, even though it is clearly embedded in the economic and political worlds. When businesses in countries that were once poor colonies are acquiring businesses in countries that were once their colonizers, and more recently, a source of development aid, it is bound to stir up some interesting feelings, among all involved. With the Arcelor and then the Land Rover & Jaguar acquisitions, both Mittal and Tata Motors made an effort to quell anxieties about European and American companies being run by Indian managers. They emphasized that they intended to leave the companies fairly intact, to have key managers stay on. Acquiring companies nearly always strive to retain talented managers at the companies they are buying, but it seemed to me that there was a subtle difference in these messages, that they wanted to communicate, tactfully, that they were not actually colonizing Europe (or the U.S.), simply making a good business deal. Let us hope that that Economist is right, this is the beginning of a more open world that will bring benefits of investment flows to both developed and emerging economies, and maybe even an increased understanding among the people who work together around the world.