Combined market valuation of all listed government entities grown to close to Rs 20,000,000 crore, according to analysis of data available with BSE, NSE.
Tatas and Ambanis may be known for being among the country’s wealthiest groups, but it takes as many as 10 of them to match the stock market wealth of the conglomerate comprising of various government companies.
The combined market valuation of all listed government entities has grown to close to Rs 20,000,000 crore, according to an analysis of data available with the two bourses, BSE and NSE.
In comparison, all the companies belonging to the country’s 10 most valued private business groups together command a cumulative market valuation of this magnitude.
This makes the group of the government companies the most valued conglomerate in the country with a size over four times of the most valued private business house Tatas.
Among the private corporate groups, the Ratan Tata-led salt-to-software conglomerate is currently the largest with a market wealth of Rs 4,47,351 crore, followed by Mukesh Ambani- led Reliance group at Rs 283,000 crore, Deepak Parekh-led HDFC group (Rs 221,000 crore) and Infosys (Rs 168,500 crore).
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These are followed by tobacco-to-FMCG conglomerate ITC (Rs 156,000 crore), retail-to-telecom giant Bharti group (Rs 145,600 crore), Anil Agarwal-led Vedanta group (Rs 141,200 crore), Adani Group (Rs 137,400 crore), ICICI Bank (Rs 126,00 crore) and Aditya Birla group (Rs 117,500 crore).
Together, these 10 most valued private business houses command a cumulative stock market valuation of Rs 19,43,000 crore, based on the value of all their 60 listed entities.
In comparison, there are close to 100 listed government entities in the country, including 50 central public sector enterprises and 28 public sector banks, while the rest are state-level public sector companies and the companies promoted by various PSUs.
There are more than 100 other unlisted public sector companies, including behemoths like BSNL and Air India.
The combined market valuation of the 100 listed companies have grown to Rs 19,35,000 crore as on July 1, 2011, which is only a shade below the cumulative figure for 10 largest private sector business houses.
It is the strong investor appetite for public sector companies that makes them such a strong group and this is evident from close to Rs 1,00,000 crore garnered by the government through disinvestment in various PSUs.
The government has set a disinvestment target of Rs 40,000 crore for the current fiscal also, while it aims to garner Rs 95,000 crore in three financial years.
Experts said that the government companies have always remained a good investment proposition for investors, barring a few exceptions, while the private companies, despite belonging to large groups, generally pass through both good and bad phases.
For example, the experts pointed out, Tatas have been doing good in past few months, but Reliance group of companies, as also some others, have not been able to perform well.
A year ago, Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance group was the country's most valued business house, ahead of Tatas, but the scenario has reversed currently.
On the other hand, Anil Ambani group (ADAG), which was third-largest after Mukesh-led Reliance group and Tatas with a market cap of Rs 1,32,600 crore as on June 30, 2010, is not even in top-ten now and is currently ranked 14th with a market valuation of Rs 82,500 crore. Mukesh Ambani group has also lost about Rs 75,000 crore of its market cap in past one year, while Tatas have gained over Rs 1,20,000 crore.
Among other groups, Sunil Mittal-led Bharti group has gained close to Rs 45,000 crore, while that of Vedanta group has grown by only about Rs 10,000 crore.
Vedanta group’s market cap would rise further by about Rs 62,000 crore once it completes the Cairn India acquisition.
Among the government companies, Coal India is the most valued with a stand-alone market cap of Rs 242,600 crore, followed by ONGC (Rs 236,400 crore), SBI (Rs 153,800 crore), NTPC (Rs 153,400 crore), NMDC (Rs 104,500 crore) and BHEL (Rs 100,350 crore).
Other large public sector companies include MMTC, Indian Oil, GAIL, SAIL,
PowerGrid, PNB, Bank of Baroda, Oil India, NHPC and PFC.
All the government companies together account for nearly 30 per cent of the country’s total stock market wealth, while there are four public sector companies (Coal India, ONGC, SBI and NTPC) among the country's 10 most valued entities.