The top groups

Last year, we had mentioned how two groups, the AV Birla Group and the Bajaj Group, had steadily lost ground in terms of coverage. Well, the latter has lost ground further, dropping from #10 to #14, while the former has gained some ground to #12, but is still way short of State Bank of India, which rounds off our Top 10 list this year. L.N. Mittal’s ArcelorMittal has also lost ground quite dramatically, dropping 12 positions to #17, perhaps expectedly, after the excitement of its high stakes takeover battle for Arcelor the previous year.

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The Tata Group maintains its position as the most written-about business house in the country, while the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group pips elder brother Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Group to come in as a distant #2.

Reliance, Bharti Airtel, ICICI Group, ITC and the Mahindra Group more or less maintain their positions in the Top 10. Vijay Mallya’s UB Group and Kishore Biyani’s Future Group have scored most dramatically in terms of media visibility.

For UB Group, the reasons are not hard to find: the group took over Whyte & Mackay during the year, its promoter bought a 50 per cent stake in Formula 1 team Spyker and renamed it Force India and there was considerable speculation about the group buying a team franchise in the Board of Control for Cricket in India-promoted Indian Premier League, while the latter maintained its position as the largest Indian retail chain.