Bull run on Dalal Street continues for Reliance, Adani Group companies

The combined m-cap of the six Adani Group companies is up 39 per cent year-to-date to Rs 13.38 trillion on Thursday

The post-Covid bull run on Dalal Street has ended with sharp decline in the broader market in the past few months. The benchmark BSE Sensex is down nearly 9 per cent since the beginning of the current calendar year (2022, or CY22) and nearly 15 per cent from its all-time high in October last year.

The bull run, however, continues unabated for two of India’s biggest family-owned business groups — Mukesh Ambani and Adani. The flagship companies of these two business groups continue to see a rise in their share price and market capitalisation (m-cap), even as the rest of India Inc is under pressure from domestic and global macroeconomic headwinds. 

The combined m-cap of the six Adani Group companies is up 39 per cent year-to-date (YTD) to Rs 13.38 trillion on Thursday — up from Rs 9.62 trillion at the end of December 2021. Five of the six Adani Group companies saw a rise in their m-cap in the past six months, led by Adani Power, up 163.5 per cent YTD, followed by Adani Green, up 47.2 per cent. Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone is the only outlier — down 4.8 per cent YTD.

Including Adani Wilmar that listed on the bourses in February, Adani Group companies’ combined m-cap is up 47 per cent YTD to Rs 14.13 trillion on Thursday.

In the same period, the combined m-cap of the seven listed companies of the Mukesh Ambani group is up 9 per cent YTD to Rs 17.81 trillion on Thursday — up from Rs 16.33 trillion at the end of December 2021. The group flagship — Reliance Industries — is up 9.6 per cent YTD. The company ended Thursday with an m-cap of Rs 17.56 trillion — up Rs 16.01 trillion at the end of December 2021.

In contrast, eight of the top 10 family-owned business groups saw a decline in their group m-cap in the past six months, in line with the broader market.

For example, Tata Group — which led the league table with group m-cap of Rs 21.44 trillion on Thursday — saw an 8.2 per cent decline in its m-cap YTD.

The analysis is based on a common sample of 1,062 listed companies that are part of the BSE 500, BSE MidCap, and BSE SmallCap indices. Three-fourths of the companies in the sample have seen a decline in their m-cap YTD, with 30 per cent of companies down 25 per cent or more during the period. In all, the combined m-cap of these companies is down 9.6 per cent YTD, from Rs 252 trillion at the end of December 2021 to Rs 227.7 trillion on Thursday.

Similarly, Bajaj Group companies’ combined m-cap is down 21.1 per cent YTD to Rs 6.77 trillion, from Rs 8.58 trillion at the end of December 2021. The Bharti Airtel-led Bharti Group m-cap is down 2.6 per cent YTD to Rs 4.44 trillion on Thursday.

Aditya Birla companies are down 24.5 per cent on average YTD to a combined m-cap of Rs 3.69 trillion on Thursday — down from Rs 4.89 trillion at the end of 2021. This excludes the figures for the group joint venture Vodafone Idea.

Other business group with double-digit decline in m-cap in the first six months of CY22 include Mahindra (minus 12.9 per cent), Shiv Nadar Group (minus 26.2 per cent), Wipro (minus 41.8 per cent), Vedanta (minus 28.6 per cent), and JSW Group (minus 18 per cent).