At Rs 4.7 trillion, NSE most-valued unlisted firm in India: Hurun list

Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries is the most valuable company for the fourth consecutive year

India’s largest equity bourse, the National Stock Exchange (NSE), reported a staggering 201 per cent jump in valuation last year to become the tenth-most valuable private company in the country at ₹4.7 trillion, according to the 2024 Burgundy Private Hurun India 500 list released on Tuesday.

 

NSE is also the most valuable unlisted company in India, surpassing Cyrus Poonawalla’s Serum Institute of India, whose valuation stood at ₹2.1 trillion, the list said.

 

Established in 1992, the NSE has been looking to go public for close to a decade now, but regulatory hurdles have thwarted its attempts so far.

 

Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries (RIL) has retained the pole position as the most valuable company in India for the fourth consecutive year, with a valuation of ₹17.5 trillion, while Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), India’s largest IT services provider, came in second at ₹16.1 lakh crore, reporting a 30 per cent growth.

 

The Adani Group, which includes nine listed companies, was valued at ₹13.4 trillion, while RIL’s overall valuation was pegged at ₹19.7 trillion.

 

The salt-to-software Tata Sons led among the industrial groups, with a 37 per cent jump in valuation to touch ₹32.3 trillion. It roughly constitutes 10 per cent of the total value of the top 500 companies.

 

According to the report, the top 500 most valuable companies in the list have a combined valuation of ₹324 trillion of $3.8 trillion, up 40 per cent from last year. The combined valuation of these firms is higher than the gross domestic product (GDP) of the country.

 

Only 33 of the top 500 companies in the list have made it to the Hurun Global 1,000, as Indian companies generally have a relatively young heritage, with the average age of these companies being 43 years. 

 

After RIL and TCS, HDFC Bank, Bharti Airtel, and ICICI Bank are among the five most valuable companies.

 

The top ten companies are valued at $1.1 trillion (₹95 trillion) in 2024, with their valuations skyrocketing by around ₹23 trillion since the previous year, surpassing the GDP of Saudi Arabia, the report said. 

 

“For the first time, Bharti Airtel stormed into the top five with an ₹9.74 trillion valuation, a 75 per cent increase, climbing two spots. The company has contributed the highest value in absolute terms, adding more than ₹4 trillion this year,” it said.

 

The report added that the total value of the top ten most valuable Indian companies has increased 3.5 times over the past decade. The top seven companies have remained in the top 10 for the past five and ten years.

 

Meanwhile, the threshold to secure a spot in the list has risen to ₹9,580 crore, marking a 43 per cent increase from last year’s limit of ₹6,700 crore. As a result, all the companies in this list are valued at least $1 billion, despite a significant depreciation of the Indian rupee.

 

“The size of the business and their valuations is growing over the years, which is a good sign from a valuation creation perspective”, said Anas Rahman Junaid, founder and chief researcher, Hurun India, on the increase in the threshold by almost ₹3,000 crore.

 

In terms of sectors, financial services companies dominate the list, with 63 companies valued at ₹62 trillion, accounting for 19 per cent of the total valuation, followed by health care, with 59 companies and a valuation of ₹29.3 trillion. Industrial products and automobile companies occupy the next two spots, while chemical companies rank fifth.

 

The exhaustive list of the 500 companies also includes major start-ups including Zepto, Zerodha, OneCard, CRED, Zetwark, BharatPe, and Ola Electric. Electronic trading platform Zerodha is also the fourth most valuable unlisted company, with a valuation of ₹87,750 crore, after NSE, Serum Institute of India, and Zoho Corporation.

 

According to the report, startups in the list collectively registered a net increase of ₹1.09 trillion in valuation, led by Zepto, Oyo, and Zerodha.

 

Other notable gainers were Motilal Oswal Financial Services that led the list of fastest-growing companies with a year-on-year (Y-o-Y) value growth of 297 per cent, followed by Inox Wind and Zepto, both nearly tripling their valuations over the year.