The unthinkable has happened!
Mukesh Ambani led Reliance has been upstaged as India’s largest company by market capitalization and the one who has managed to achieve this feat is by no means a veteran in the Stock Market.
Coal India, which listed on 4th November, 2010 and got included in the BSE Sensex on August 4 is a toddler by stock market standards and this makes the company’s claim to fame even more formidable.
Here’s how the market capitalization looks like for Reliance and Coal India
Reliance Industries’ market cap stands at Rs 248,662.36 crore and that of Coal India stands at Rs 250,728.08 crore
Coal India touched an intraday high of Rs 397.65 and an intraday low of Rs 387.50.
For the similar period, RIL stock prices remained stagnant and catapulted the market cap of Coal India higher than RIL.
For starters, Coal India’s tryst with the stock market has been nothing short of perfect. Coal India IPO witnessed tremendous response, got oversubscribed by multiple times and managed to list above Rs 300 (as against the IPO price of 245).
But over-subscription and premium listing is not a one-off case in Indian Stock markets. Where Coal India differentiated itself was that it seldom lost steam and continued its upward journey in-spite of the market driven ups and downs.
Coal India and Jubilant IPO are the only two IPOs in my knowledge that have done tremendously well among the IPOs that have come in the last 2 years.
However, more than Coal India taking the number 1 spot the worrying aspect is Reliance Industries losing the top spot.
Mr. Dhirubhai Ambani was the master player of the Indian Stock Market and he used the markets every now and then to raise capital.
However, ever since the split of business Reliance brand has had its share of setbacks. Global recessionary periods not withstanding, both Mukesh and Anil Ambani have failed to keep the investors happy which has resulted in fall of share prices for Reliance brand of companies owned by the brothers.
Again, market capitalization is a short-term metric and a jump in RIL share prices tomorrow can restore RIL’s place at the top but Coal India has managed to do what other companies in India have not managed to do for years.
Somewhere in a corner, ONGC must be managing a grin out of this news. Afterall, it was RIL which took away the ‘biggest company by market capitalization’ tag from ONGC
What are your thoughts on Coal India’s moment of fame as India’s biggest company?
Moreover, will Coal India be able to sustain the top spot for long enough because as they say "It is easy to become No.1 but difficult to sustain the No.1 position"