47 Indian firms have $1 bn-plus m-cap

Market boom adds to India Inc's cheer

As many as 47 Indian companies now command a market capitalisation of $1 billion and more, up from 27 on April 25, 2003.

Thanks to the stock market rally, which has catapulted these companies into the global league of billion-dollar companies, India is firmly on the foreign institutional investors' (FIIs') radar.

This group of 47 companies includes entities from the information technology, refinery, steel, power, bank, automobile, telecommunications, pharmaceuticals and power industries.

The relatively wide sectoral distribution of these 47 companies means that one or another global speciality fund, if not the diversified funds, will always be chasing some Indian companies.

FIIs usually have a minimum capitalisation bar at which point they start tracking the company regularly.

In trade parlance, this is called "initiating coverage." From that point on, the FIIs latch on to the fundamentals, putting temporary adverse market movements on the back burner.

Leading the list of 47 is the public sector refinery giant Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), with a market capitalisation of $18.77 billion (Rs 86,205 crore) on November 27.

ONGC's market capitalisation stood at $10.60 billion on April 25, 2003, the day the Bombay Stock Exchange Sensex tanked to a six-month low.

The second largest in terms of market capitalisation is, of course, Reliance Industries with a market cap of $14.45 billion (Rs 66,369 crore), up from $7.89 billion (Rs 37,445 crore) on April 25.

The current boom has brought good tidings for companies in the steel, automobile, bank, pharmaceutical and power industries.

A good 20 companies have entered this billion-dollar league in the last seven months. Steel giant Steel Authority of India (Sail) ranked tenth in the list with a market capitalisation of $3.79 billion (Rs 17,389 crore), up from $0.77 billion seven months ago.

Tata Steel which missed the bus seven months ago, is now a billion-dollar company with a market capitalisation of $2.84 billion.

Larsen & Toubro stands tall at $2.10 billion, Grasim at $1.77 billion, HCL Technologies at $1.77 billion, Hero Honda at $1.63 billion, Cipla at $1.57 billion and Reliance Energy at $1.34 billion. The prices of each of these stocks have appreciated by more than 100 per cent in the last seven months.

From a relatively modest market capitalisation of $0.15 billion each in April 2003, Sterlite Industries and Hindustan Zinc climbed into the billion dollar list with market capitalisation of $1.24 billion and $1.05 billion, respectively.