6 top-10 valued firms lose Rs 71,414 crore market valuation; LIC, TCS, HUL biggest losers

Six of the top-10 most valued firms in India saw a combined market valuation erosion of Rs 71,414 crore last week, with the state-owned Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) being the biggest laggard. These firms, which include LIC, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), ITC, Hindustan Unilever, Bharti Airtel and Reliance Industries, faced a total erosion of Rs 71,414.03 crore.

Conversely, the State Bank of India, Infosys, HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank emerged as gainers, collectively adding Rs 62,038.86 crore. Despite this, the BSE benchmark climbed 831.15 points, or 1.16 per cent, last week.

Notably, Reliance Industries became the first Indian company to achieve a market capitalisation of Rs 20 lakh crore, with its shares hitting a 52-week high of Rs 2,968.40 apiece. In dollar terms, RIL's market cap is $239 billion. RIL currently holds the 48th position in the list of most-valuable companies in the world.

In order to achieve this feat, RIL surpassed the likes of Pepsico, Novartis, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and SAP. The rise in Reliance's m-cap lifted Mukesh Ambani's net worth to $109 billion, as per the Bloomberg Billionaires' Index.

He is the richest Indian and the 11th richest person in the world, as per the index. RIL is now behind Netflix by around a billion dollars. Microsoft Corp, with a m-cap of $3.08 trillion, is the most valuable company in the world. Other top shots are Apple Inc ($2.89 trillion), Saudi Aramco ($2.04 trillion) and Google-owned Alphabet Inc ($1.84 trillion). 

If the m-cap of Jio Financial Services, which demerged from RIL on July 20, 2023, is also included, the combined market value of Reliance would reach Rs 21.73 lakh crore, placing the company at the 43rd position ahead of Accenture and Netflix. 

In December 2023, Ambani said in an address to employees that he is confident that the firm would grow to ranks among the top 10 business conglomerates of the world in the coming years. 

At home, TCS is valued at Rs 15 lakh crore whereas HDFC Bank is valued at Rs 10.51 lakh crore. In the ranking of top-10 most valued firms, Reliance Industries continued to lead the chart, followed by TCS, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Infosys, State Bank of India, LIC, Bharti Airtel, Hindustan Unilever and ITC.

(With PTI inputs)