Eight new companies in Rs 10 bn profit club

In 2005-06, eight listed companies entered the Rs 10 billion (Rs 1,000 crore) net profit club, taking the total membership to 30.

The list could have been slightly longer had Hindusthan Petroleum Corporation and Neyveli Lignite been able to keep their turnover above the magic figure. Both went out of the list on account of depressed profits last year.

At the higher end, the number of companies with over Rs 4,500 crore profit has gone down from five to four, with the Steel Authority of India seeing its net profit going down.

The new entrants are three public sector and five private companies. From the public sector, National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC), Bharat Heavy Electrical (BHEL) and Hindustan Zinc have made it to the club.

Two private sector automobile firms, Maruti Udyog and Bajaj Automobiles, and one each from software (Satyam Computer), engineering (Larsen & Toubro) and petrochemicals (Indian Petrochemicals) are the other entrants.

Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) heads the list of profit-making companies with a net profit of Rs 14,430 crore ($3.15 billion), followed by Reliance Industries Rs 9,069 crore ($2 billion), NTPC Rs 5,820 crore ($1.27 billion), IndianOil Rs 4,915 crore ($1.07 billion) and State Bank of India Rs 4,406 crore ($0.97 billion).

The top 10 rankings are equally shared by public and private sector companies.

The 30 companies, with a net profit of over Rs 1,000 crore in 2005-06, account for 59 per cent of India Inc's net profit and 56 per cent of cash profit.

These firms collectively posted an aggregate net profit of Rs 84,183 crore, cornering 59 per cent share of the total net profit of Rs 142,009 crore earned by 2,730 companies taken for the study.

Even though the number of companies posting net profit of over Rs 1,000 crore increased from 19 in FY04 to 24 in FY05, the market share to total net profit of these firms remained almost same at around 56 per cent in both the years.

Of the 30 entities, 18 are from the private sector and 12 from the public sector. The sectoral distribution shows that four companies each are from banking and information technology, three from automobiles and two each from aluminum, petrochemicals and steel sectors.

The number of companies having net profit of over Rs 1,000 crore more than doubled in the last three years "" from 14 firms in FY03 to 32 now. Five companies were added to the list in FY04, taking the tally to 19. With five more joining in FY05, the tally has swelled to 24.