Reliance Group is top wealth creator with Rs 67,300 cr M-Cap

New Delhi, May 16 : AMIDST the meltdown in ICE scrips, the Reliance Group reaffirmed its supremacy as the leading ’wealth creator’ with a Rs 5,900 crore rise in its market capitalisation to Rs 67,296 crore in the last fiscal.

Market data reveal Ambani Group companies — Reliance Industries, Reliance Petroleum, Reliance Capital and Reliance Industrial Infrastructure — posted 9.6 per cent rise in M-Cap over Rs 61,392 crore even as the BSE Sensex shed 28 per cent.

Apart from Reliance, only ITC and HDFC group companies posted rise in M-Cap by over Rs 1,000 crore, while Sahara India Media Communication increased its wealth by an astronomical 1,100 per cent, as per latest available data.

The other groups including VP Singhania, Ms Oberoi, GE Shipping, OP Jindal and Wadia’s Bombay Dyeing groups also increased M-Cap by over Rs 100 crore. Surprisingly, old economy icons Tata or AV Birla groups did not figure among Top-10 wealth creators in the year which was gripped by industrial slowdown.

ITC Group companies — ITC Ltd, ITC Bhadrachalam, ITC Hotels, VST Industries and International Travel House — instilled investor confidence to become second largest wealth creator with about Rs 2,160 crore rise in M-Cap last fiscal.

HDFC and HDFC Bank together posted a 12.2 per cent (about Rs 1,310 crore) rise in M-Cap to Rs 12,085 crore in March end as against Rs 10,771 crore in the previous year.

Sahara India Media, whose M-Cap crossed Rs 570 crore last fiscal-end from a meagre Rs 46 crore in 1999-2000, was perhaps an exception over major ICE scrips of Wipro, Zee and Infosys, which shed over 50 per cent of their M-Cap.

Not all old economy companies bore the brunt of industrial slowdown as Vijaypat Singhania, MS Oberoi, GE Shipping, Jindal and Nusli Wadia groups increased their M-Caps by over Rs 100 crore.

Singhania group companies including Raymond Ltd and JK Chemicals, posted a whopping 74 per cent rise in M-Cap (about Rs 350 crore) from the previous Rs 474 crore.

The Ms Oberoi group, which runs the Oberoi Hotels, was close to the Singhanias with a Rs 349 crore rise in M-Cap last year, as compared to Rs 770 crore in the end of 1999-2000.

GE Shipping group companies — Great Eastern Shipping and Prime Securities — logged about Rs 190 crore rise in M-Cap last fiscal from Rs 500 crore in March end 2000.

Surpassing the rough weathers in steel industry, the OP Jindal group companies including Jindal Strips and Jindal Vijayanagar Steel, came up with a Rs 118 crore rise in M-Cap over previous year’s Rs 1,178 crore.

The Bajoria bout came as a boon to Nusli Wadia’s Bombay Dyeing Group companies, whose prices soared and pushed up aggregate M-Cap by 5.4 per cent to about Rs 2,160 crore last fiscal as against Rs 2,045 crore in the previous year.

The Welspun Group emerged a dark-horse amid the well-known business houses to post an over 100 per cent rise in M-Cap to Rs 259 crore.

The overall M-Cap of top-10 wealth creators stood at about Rs 1,20,000 crore, where the contribution of Reliance group was over 50 per cent, posting a 14.4 per cent growth over previous year’s level of Rs 1,04,530 crore. (PTI)