HCL Technologies joins Rs 1 trillion market capitalization club

HCL Technologies becomes the fourth IT Company after TCS, Infosys and Wipro to achieve Rs 1 trillion market capitalisation.

HCL Technologies joined the elite club of Rs 1 trillion market-cap firms after the stock hit a record high on the bourses.

The market capitalisation of HCL Technologies rose to Rs 100,432 crore in intra-day trades on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), making it the fourth information technology (IT) company in the Indian capital market with a market cap of over Rs 1 lakh crore. HCL Technologies scrip moved higher by 4% or Rs 55 at Rs 1,437 on the BSE.

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) leads the club among IT pack with a market cap of over Rs 4.56 lakh crore, followed by Infosys (Rs 2.14 lakh crore) and Wipro (Rs 1.41 lakh crore).

Shares of HCL Technologies have rallied nearly 8% in past three trading sessions after reporting a better than expected 5.7% quarter-on-quarter (q-o-q) growth in its consolidated net profit at Rs 1,496 crore for the second quarter ended December 2013 (Q2). The benchmark S&P BSE Sensex has declined 0.68% during the same period.

Analyst at Sharekhan maintains ‘Buy’ rating on the stock with a price target of Rs 1,640.

From the last several quarters HCL Tech is consistently delivering on our expectations and is well poised to reap the benefits of an improvement in the demand environment, said analyst in a report dated January 16, 2014.

Rumit Dugar and Udit Garg of Religare Institutional Research have raised their FY14/FY15 EPS (earnings per share) to Rs 86/Rs 94 to factor in the healthy margin performance and roll over to a new March 2015 target price of Rs 1,600 (from Rs 1,200) based on 15x fwd P/E.

They believe that growth in Q2 has been a bit more broad-based compared to previous quarters, though further acceleration is needed in software services for a continued re-rating.