In the past five years, Birla has realigned his businesses to reduce debt, unlock value and improve returns to investors. Birla's UltraTech Cement Ltd has moved aggressively to acquire local cement makers anticipating a demand pick-up led by the government's thrust on infrastructure development. While the merger of group companies AB Nuvo and Grasim and demerger of Aditya Birla Finance was aimed at unlocking value for investors, the move to merge the group's telecom unit, Idea Cellular Ltd, with Vodafone India Ltd is aimed at taking on Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd. On Thursday, the Vodafone-Idea merger got the final approval from the government.