New Delhi, May 6 -- Mumbai: When Dilip Shanghvi walked into the press conference to announce Sun Pharmaceutical's acquisition of Organon & Co.-an $11.75 billion deal that will effectively double the company's revenue to $12.4 billion-he offered a rare admission.

"I'm happy, excited, also a little bit anxious," he told journalists, adding that the sheer size of the transaction reminded him of announcing the Ranbaxy Laboratories deal a decade ago.

Back then, Sun was a fraction of its current size. This time, it is acquiring a company roughly equal in size, paying for it with cash and borrowed money rather than stock, and doing so at what Shanghvi described as "less than 25% of Sun's own value."

At the surface, the Organon deal is a story...