Nearly 15% promoters of private firms have seen their wealth go up in the past one year. This can mainly be attributed to the healthy performance of these companies, prompting the promoters to raise their stakes.

For instance, the promoters of Spice Communications raised their stake from 28.14 crore shares on March 31, 2008, to 68.23 crore shares on March 31, 2009. Meanwhile, Mahindra & Mahindra promoters also increased their number of shares from 5.56 crore to 8.14 crore.

The aggregate market capitalisation of 2,198 companies? promoters fell by Rs 5.80 lakh crore from Rs 19.02 lakh crore as on May 21, 2008, to Rs 13.22 lakh crore on May 21. Of the lot, promoters wealth of 318 companies went up by over 20.5%.

An analyst from a rating agency said, ?Choppy markets have provided promoters a good opportunity to increase holdings in several companies. Taking benefit of the low share prices, they increased their stakes in these companies through warrant issues, rights issues, open market purchases, among others.?

He added, ?Many companies, including large corporate houses like Reliance, Tata and Birla have witnessed a rise in promoter holding in the last two-three quarters. This demonstrates promoter confidence in the companies and safeguards them from takeover threats. With the increased holding, their current market valuation has increased to a certain extent. The valuation had earlier seen a sharp fall due to plummeting share prices.?

Among the 2,198 companies, the promoters of Reliance Industries maintained their top rank in terms of market capitalisation. However, Reliance promoters wealth dwindled by a cool Rs 35,860 crore.

Promoters of telecomm major Bharti Airtel, which was second, saw a gain of Rs 5,620 crore to its market cap.

Promoters of DLF were placed third. But the company?s promoter value decreased by Rs 43,979 crore during the year.

Some significant rise was seen in automobiles and cement stocks. Promoters of Hero Honda saw a gain of Rs 5,256 crore to its market cap in May 21, 2009, an increase of 60.7% over its May 21, 2008 level of Rs 8,656 crore. ACC gained Rs 884 crore during the study period.

In the case of GMR Infrastructure, an uptrend was also witnessed. Promoters of Tata Communications gained 13.7% while Motilal Oswal Financial went up a whopping 387.8%.

On the other hand, a marginal increase in market capitalisation was noticed in the case of Marico, Tata Motors, UltraTech Cement, Dr Reddy?s Labs and Berger Paints.

Out of the 2198 companies, the top five promoters in terms of market capitalisation in May 21, 2009, were Reliance Industries, Bharti Airtel, DLF, TCS and Reliance Petro. But as on May 21, 2008, the top five included Reliance Industries, Bharti Airtel, DLF, Reliance Communications and TCS. Of the top five promoters, the highest fall in market capitalisation was seen in the case of DLF (-46.1%).