RIL 57th most valuable firm globally by market-cap; Saudi Aramco tops chart

Reliance Industries (RIL) became the first Indian company to be valued at $150 billion on Monday with the stock hitting a fresh all-time high of Rs 1,804 on the BSE. Over the past three months, the RIL stock has doubled – from a low of Rs 883.85 hit on March 23 as compared to a 35 per cent rise in the S&P BSE Sensex.

The up move in RIL has been triggered by a series of investments in its telecom business vertical – Reliance Platforms – by marquee global companies and investors that include Facebook, Silver Lake Partners, KKR, General Atlantic, Mubadala, and TPG. In the process, RIL has become net-debt free much ahead of its deadline to achieve this status by March 2021.

The oil-to-telecom conglomerate now stands at 57th position in the overall market capitalisation (market-cap) ranking of listed companies globally. It ranked at 104th position as on March 24, 2020, and at the 70th position at the beginning of the current calendar year 2020, Bloomberg data show.

RIL, the only Indian company, is currently featuring in the top 100 list of most valued global companies. Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) ranked at 104th position and HDFC Bank which is at 149th position in the overall market-cap ranking.

Following stellar gains in its share price, RIL became the first Indian firm to achieve the milestone of crossing Rs 11 trillion market valuation mark on Friday and the fourth most-valued firm in the energy sector globally by market-cap – only after Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Saudi Aramco), and US firms Exxon Mobil Corp (market-cap around $194 billion; ranked 40th globally) and Chevron Corp (market-cap around $169 billion; ranked 51st globally).

On an overall basis, however, RIL’s peer in the energy business – Saudi Aramco – leads the biggest companies globally with a market-cap of $ 1,764.50 billion as on June 16, 2020. United States (US)-based Apple Inc, Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet Inc and Facebook Inc, Warren Buffet-controlled Berkshire Hathway and Johnson & Johnson form a part of the top companies globally by market-cap table. China-based Alibaba and Tencent complete this top-10 by market-cap ranking table.

GLOBAL GIANTS
Rank	Company	Country	Industry	Market-cap ($ bn)
1	SAUDI ARAMCO	SAUDI ARABIA	Oil&Gas	1764.5
2	APPLE INC	UNITED STATES	Computers	1515.8
3	MICROSOFT CORP	UNITED STATES	Software	1479.9
4	AMAZON.COM INC	UNITED STATES	Internet	1334.2
5	ALPHABET INC-A	UNITED STATES	Internet	975.0
6	FACEBOOK INC-A	UNITED STATES	Internet	680.3
7	ALIBABA GRP-ADR	CHINA	Internet	591.9
8	TENCENT	CHINA	Internet	567.5
9	BERKSHIRE HATH-A	UNITED STATES	Insurance	438.1
10	JOHNSON&JOHNSON	UNITED STATES	Pharmaceuticals	378.9
57	RELIANCE INDUSTRIES	INDIA	Oil&Gas	150.8
Data source: Bloomberg; Compiled by BS Research
RIL data as on June 22; top 10 data as on June 19