New Delhi: Eleven years ago, a company that was half the size of Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) — Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) — has now overtaken the public sector refiner to become India's biggest company in the sector in terms of revenue. In financial year 2018-19, RIL's net revenue surged by 44.8 percent to Rs 5.67 lakh crore, while IOC clocked a 28.03 percent rise in revenue to settle at Rs 5.28 lakh crores, Rs 38,986 crore less than that of RIL.
This has now placed RIL ahead of the state-run refiner on all three parameters — revenue, profit and market capitalisation.
RIL's CAGR
Buoyed by strong margins and an increased focus on the retail business, RIL registered a 14.1 percent CAGR for its full-year revenues between FY10 and FY19. In contrast, IOC's revenue grew at about 6.3 percent during the same period.
RIL has market capitalisation of Rs 8.4 lakh crore
With market capitalisation at Rs 8.4 lakh crore, RIL has nearly a 10th of the Nifty's market value of Rs 86.4 lakh crore. RIL's share in the combined revenues and profits of the whole index constituents is also at the same level. May was a tumultuous month for RIL as its stocks plunged about 12.5 percent after hitting a peak at the beginning of May. However, it has rebounded since then with a gain of over 7.6 percent.
Gross debt is high
At the end of FY2018-19, even though the Mukesh Ambani-led company boasted of the highest cash reserves of Rs 1.33 lakh crore on the book, it also had the highest gross debt of Rs 2.88 lakh crore.