Business Today 10 December 2023

For some time now, the Indian markets have been navigating geopolitical concerns and global economic headwinds, and this has been reflected over the past few months in the way the equity markets have behaved. While most market analysts believe that the country is generally in a good place as far as its fundamentals are concerned and that the India story is on a secular uptrend, immediate concerns often turn the bourses jittery. The trend then is long-term bullishness with short-term volatility. Amid this choppiness, Indian bellwether companies have, by and large, fared well, and held their ground as far as market performance is concerned. The BT500, the much-awaited ranking of India’s most valuable companies—where we rank the Top 500 in terms of their average market capitalisation (m-cap)—reflects this. The period…

The BSE building in Mumbai Data as on November 8 SOURCE ACE EQUITY 33 PER CENT Returns given by the BSE SmallCap, followed by the BSE MidCap (30 per cent), as the broader market has outperformed the Sensex ₹1.85 LAKH CRORE The amount pumped in by domestic investors into Indian equities, compared to the ₹1.45 lakh crore invested by FIIs 52 PER CENT The surge recorded by the BSE Realty index, followed by BSE Capital Goods (47 per cent) and BSE Auto (26 per cent)…

KEY MILESTONES THE COMBINED MARKET VALUE OF THE BT500 COMPANIES HAS INCREASED BY ROUGHLY 259 TIMES SINCE THE FIRST LIST IN 1992 NOTE IN 1992, THE M-CAP ON DECEMBER 24, 1991, WAS USED; FROM 1993-1996, THE M-CAP OF THE FINANCIAL YEAR ENDED MARCH WAS USED; FOR 1997-2001, THE AVERAGE M-CAP BETWEEN APRIL 1 AND MARCH 31 WAS USED; FOR 2002-2016, THE AVERAGE M-CAP BETWEEN APRIL 1 AND SEPTEMBER 30 WAS USED; FOR 2017-2023, THE AVERAGE M-CAP BETWEEN OCTOBER 1-SEPTEMBER 30 WAS CONSIDERED. BEFORE 2011 PSU WERE LISTED SEPARATELY SOURCE BT500, ACE EQUITY THE BT500 ECOSYSTEM WITH A MARKET CAP OF ₹62 LAKH CRORE THIS YEAR, THE BFSI SECTOR ONCE AGAIN DOMINATES THE BT500 LIST (Sector-wise number of companies on BT500 and their cumulative market cap) FIGURES IN BRACKETS INDICATE AVERAGE…

AT AN ELECTION rally in Chhattisgarh’s Durg, Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a surprise announcement that the government will extend the scheme to provide free foodgrain for five more years until December 2028. Of course, it wasn’t expected to come to an abrupt end. Launched at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY) provides 5 kg of free foodgrain per person per month and was set to be discontinued by December-end, 2023. The scheme has had a huge impact with an estimated 813.5 million beneficiaries, or nearly two-thirds of the country’s population. The extension makes for good optics, and is being seen as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government’s largesse to woo voters in the ongoing state elections, and has rankled…

CO-WORKING SPACE giant WeWork’s decision to file for bankruptcy in the US marked a massive fall for a firm that had jumped to dizzying heights not so long ago. The Soft-Bank Group-backed start-up was valued at $47 billion in early 2019 and yet announced in October that it was unable to pay back debt. The contrast between the boom-and-bust story of the global entity and its Indian arm couldn’t be starker. We-Work India—a 73:27 joint venture in which Bengalurubased real estate major Embassy Group holds a 73 per cent stake—recorded a 75 per cent year-on-year jump in revenue in FY23, according to its CEO Karan Virwani. The Indian arm has highlighted that it is an independent venture. But its independence and good financial performance may not shield it from the…

MOST OF OBEROI Hotels’ expansion coincided with India opening up its economy in the 1990s. Till then, it was still a relatively small business. The gap in the market, to Prithvi Raj Singh Oberoi’s eye, indicated a demand for high-quality business traveller hotels in India. Consequently, he worked towards fulfilling that gap, and today, EIH (the flagship company of The Oberoi Group that runs the hotels business) has a list of impressive properties across the world. THE OBEROI HOTELS ARE AMONG THE BEST OF INDIAN LUXURY HOSPITALITY In his long stint at the helm of the Group, Oberoi, known to friends as Biki, not only consolidated and grew his father’s legacy of building a premium hotels business in India, but also took the brand to many foreign shores, and earned…