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Dozen more in billion dollar club
By agencies
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Wednesday, 24 August 2005, 19:30 IST
MUMBAI: Riding high on the bull run in the stock markets, a dozen business groups have joined the $1 billion market cap club over the last one year. As on Tuesday the total number of business groups in the elite club were 27 from 15 in August last year.
The list of the new entrants includes Vijay Mallya's UB group, the Lalit Mohan Thapar group, the Murugappa Chettiar group, Nicholas Piramal, Essar, Wockhardt, Godrej, the Jaiprakash group, the RP Goenka group, the BK Birla group, the Nusli Wadia group and Asian Paints.
The aggregate wealth of 27 business groups with a market cap of over $1 billion appreciated by 68 percent to $128.87 billion, compared with $76.66 billion a year ago.
Of these business groups, 13 reaped the benefits of the bull run the most with their market caps doubling in a year. The UB group showed 197 percent rise in its market value to $1.77 billion from around $600 million last year.
The total market value of the Murugappa group appreciated by 184 percent to $1.26 billion, Godrej by 163 percent to $1.04 billion, Thapar by 158 percent to $1.53 billion and the RPG group by 151 percent to $1.02 billion.
Three Indian business groups - Reliance, the Tatas and Bharti - have a market cap of over $10 billion each. The Reliance group tops the list with a market cap of $28.20 billion. Even after the split in the group, the Mukesh Ambani wing tops with a market cap of $24.1 billion.
Anil Ambani with Reliance Energy and Reliance Capital occupies the number 10 slot with a market cap of $4.1 billion. Reliance Infocomm, the telecom flagship company of the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Enterprise, is not listed.
The Tata group ranks second with a market cap of $19.89 billion and Sunil Mittal's Bharti group ranks third with a market cap of $13.79 billion.
The next in the ladder are the AV Birla group ($6.87 billion), Ranbaxy ($4.83 billion), Shiv Nadar ($4.40 billion), Bajaj-Mukand ($4.34 billion) and the Sterlite group ($4.19 billion).
Among individual firms, two UB group companies - United Breweries Holdings and UB Engineering - have seen their market prices appreciating by over 1000 percent over the last one year.