RIL m-cap touches Rs 2 lakh cr

Reliance Industries (RIL) today became the third Indian company to achieve a market capitalisation of Rs 2,00,000 crore. At today's closing price of Rs 1,460 on the Bombay Stock Exchange, the highest-ever, the market cap stands at Rs 2,03,452 crore.

RIL now has the largest market cap of all companies in India and ranks 169th in the world. State-owned oil company ONGC is at the second place with Rs 192,423 crore, while home-grown telecom giant Bharti Airtel ranks third with Rs 1,52,068 crore. State-owned power giant NTPC is fourth (Rs 1,30,897 crore) and Tata Group's software giant TCS ranks fifth (Rs 1,25,270 crore).

Mukesh Ambani controls four companies "" Reliance Industries, Reliance Petroleum, IPCL and Reliance Industrial Infrastructures "" aggregating Rs 2,22,954 crore in market cap. His brother Anil has five "" Reliance Communications, Reliance Energy, Reliance Capital, Reliance Natural Resources and Adlabs Films - with a total market capitalisation of Rs 1,16,649 crore. The Ambani brothers, with combined a market cap of Rs 334,602 crore, account for 12.67 per cent of the market cap of the private sector.

RIL's current market cap of $46.43 billion places the company at number 17 in the global energy sector ranking. The energy giant Exxon Mobil Corporation with market cap of $440.726 billion tops in overall ranking as well as energy sector ranking.

Exxon Mobil Corporation operates petroleum and petrochemicals businesses on a worldwide scale.

However, RIL's shares are traded at a price-earnings multiple of 21.65, while Exxon Mobil, at market prices of $70.41, is trading at 11.82 times its trailing 12 months earnings.

RIL became the second private sector company and third Indian company after the public refinery giant ONGC and Wipro to touch these feet. Wipro first to cross Rs 200,000 crore level, and had touched Rs 231,409 crore market cap during information technology boom in February 21, 2000. ONGC in last year on May 9, 2006 touched the market cap of Rs 205,310 crore, when the stock closed an all time high Rs 959.90 on BSE.