MUMBAI: Ahmedabad-based Adani Group has been in spotlight as the valuation of five of its seven companies has crossed the Rs 1 lakh crore market cap mark, while the other two are on the threshold of achieving that milestone.
At a group level, the valuation is just 12% away from that of India’s largest company Reliance Industries. And this at a pace that has left most analysts dumbstruck. What took RIL, India’s largest conglomerate, 13 years to achieve, the Ahmedabad- based Adani Group is almost there in 19 months.
Oil-to-telecom and retail behemoth RIL’s valuation, excluding the relatively negligible market cap of smaller companies owned by it, rose from Rs 1.89 lakh crore on March 12, 2009, to Rs 17.87 lakh crore on April 19 , 2022.
Against this, transport, logistics and energy utility-focused Adani Group has seen its valuation rise from the same amount of Rs 1.9 lakh crore on August 3, 2020, to Rs 15.91 lakh crore on April 19 this year.
“The sheer pace of the rise is stunning,” said Rohit Khatri, research analyst, Religare Broking. “It shows that over the years as RIL diversified from energy into retail and telecom, Adani Group stuck to the infra utilities space and saw it’s valuation soar from there.”
In the 19 months under review, RIL’s market cap jumped by 32% to Rs 17.87 lakh crore. In the same period, Adani Total Gas saw a 1,414% rise, which led the rise in the market cap, followed by Adani Enterprises (1,159%), and Adani Transmission (1,032%). Adani Ports, which nearly tripled on a higher base, contributed heft to the group valuation and Adani Green (Rs 4.02 lakh crore change) also performed exceptionally well. The difference in market caps between the Adani group and RIL was maximum in August 2020 and the rapid rise in share prices of the companies cited above caused the gap to narrow on a sustained basis.
Meanwhile in a separate development, on Wednesday, Adani Group announced Rs 10,000-crore investment in Bengal over next 10 years. Adani Enterprises share on Wednesday rose over 1 percent Rs 2,194, while RIL gained close to 3%`to 2,717.5 on the NSE.
