This too shall pass

A recovery in India Inc's profit growth remained elusive in 2014-15. In fact, in three of the past four years, net profit declined over the previous year. And though India has stood out in terms of better economic growth compared to most other countries, Corporate India is clearly far from getting out of the woods, with heavily leveraged balance sheets, weak volume numbers and slower consumption. On the positive side, captains of industry say there are green shoots of recovery, be they in road projects, auto sales figures or coal despatches. With both the government and the central bank on the same page to clean up public sector banks' balance sheets by March 2017, the cloud of uncertainty on asset quality is expected to dissipate.

Also, while a large part of the manufacturing sector, especially commodity producers, is reeling under high debt, volume decline or lower realisations, some of their peers are flourishing as they have fewer physical assets, and lower debt compared with traditional companies, but enjoy strong brand franchises or have deep customer relationships. They have reported high growth in sales, profits and in market value. Our cover story celebrates their success.

Mergers and acquisitions make exciting headlines, but many a large deal does not deliver shareholder returns. A Business Standard study of M&As since 2005 reveals that small deals have done better in terms of shareholder returns than large deals. While the BS 1000 companies have seen their revenue rise only 1.3 per cent and net profit decline 15.7 per cent in 2014-15, some of India's top-performing unlisted firms have reported far superior numbers, but remain inaccessible to retail investors. Read about these firms in the pages that follow.

BS 1000 is also about celebrating success and honouring excellence. An eminent jury, led by Maruti Suzuki Chairman R C Bhargava, selected the winners of the Business Standard Awards for corporate performance in 2015. This year, two new award categories were introduced in tune with the changing corporate and social landscape - Best Start-Up and Public Institution. Over to them and the other winners.