Most overseas ventures by Indian enterprises have failed miserably

NINE years after they made the biggest ever overseas investment from India, Tata Steel - once the largest company in the country - is putting a lid on its losses in its ailing steel-making facilities in England. The Anglo-Dutch company Corus, which it spent US$12.8 billion buying up, has been a continual drain on its resources, so that the company's UK assets now have a book value of "almost zero".

The European operations of Tata Steel have a total capacity of about 13.5 million tonnes of which…