The growth saga of India Inc was impressive during the fourth quarter of the previous fiscal with both top line and bottom line of the country?s top 25 industrial houses witnessing a double-digit growth.
The growth in net profit of these companies (excluding banks and NBFCs) increased by 47.5% during January-March 2010. Om Prakash Jindal Group reported the highest growth in net profit at 354.7%, followed by Hinduja Group at 236%. The operating profit of the companies also grew at 47.3% during the quarter under review.
Rajan Raheja Group reported a 199.2% growth in sales, followed by Ispat-MPK at 125.3% and Reliance Industries at 120.6%. Aditya Birla Group, the second highest in terms of sales during the quarter, posted an increase of 44.5% in net profit and a growth of 23.5% in sales.
Among Rajan Raheja Group companies, Prism Cement reported a 98.9% growth in net profit. Sales grew by 744.2% at Rs 2,108.30 crore from Rs 249.7 crore during the year-ago period. Reliance Industries, Essar, Sterlite, Bajaj, Hinduja, Raheja Rajan, Ispat-MPK and Torrent also reported significant growth in sales.
In absolute terms, the total net profit of these 25 business houses increased to Rs 16,663 crore in the latest quarter from Rs 11,299 crore in January-March 2009. Eight firms posted more than 100% increase in net profit. Bajaj, Videocon, Sterlite, Hinduja, Murugappa and TVS Venu Srinivasan Group are among them.
Among the top five business houses, Reliance Industries posted the highest rise in sales, from Rs 26,100 crore in January-March 2009 to Rs 57,580 crore in January-March 2010. The aggregate net profit of Reliance Group of companies increased by 19% to Rs 4,715 crore from Rs 3,961 crore in January-March 2009.
Reliance Group led by Mukesh Ambani accounted for 25% or more of total sales of the top 25 business houses in the latest as well as year-ago quarters.
Total sales of the 25 houses increased 55.7% to Rs 1.58 lakh crore compared with Rs 1.01 lakh crore in January-March 2009. The total other income of the companies under review increased by 7.1% to Rs 2,942 crore in Q4FY10 from Rs 2,746 crore in the year-ago period.
Reliance led by Mukesh Ambani topped the list with sales of Rs 57,580 crore in January-March?10, Sriram Thyagaraj Group occupied the last spot with Rs 1,194 crore. Of the remaining, Aditya Birla Group, Essar, Om Prakash Jindal, Tata and Sterlite each registered sales of more than Rs 8500 crore.
The ratio of PAT to sales decreased from 11.14% in January-March ?09 to 10.55% in January-March ?10. Individually, the ratios increased significantly for Aditya Birla, Tata, Sterlite, Bajaj, Murugappa Group, Hinduja , R P Goenka, Welspun and Sriram Thyagaraj. The ratios decreased in cases of Reliance Industries, Essar, Rajan Raheja, BK Birla and KK Birla Group. For Reliance Industries, it came down from 15.18% to 8.19%.
The operating profit margin (OPM) of these firms also decreased from 21.5% during January-March ?09 to 20.34% during January-March ?10. A significant decrease in the ratio was seen in cases of Reliance Industries, Essar, Hinduja, Raheja Rajan, BK Birla, KK Birla and Ispat-MPK. An opposite trend was witnessed in the cases of 16 companies.
