Shining Bright Amid Challenges
The BW ‘Real’ 500 list is one of India’s most comprehensive rankings of successful businesses. It takes into account the income generated on the assets that are created by these companies. The fiscal year 2020-21, which is the period of study under consideration, saw the Indian economy and businesses struggling due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Like last year, we partnered with TechSci Research that selected only listed organisations based on their turnover for the financial year 2020-2021 and ranked the companies based on 'Total Income'. Once the list of listed companies in each category -- Top-500 Non-Financial Institutions; Top-10 Banking institutions; Top-20 Non-Banking Financial Companies -- were prepared basis revenues, TechSci explored remaining indicators for each company. The definition of some of these indicators included, for example, Total Asset. It is the total amount of assets owned by a company. TechSci has defined Total Income as the total amount of money that a company earns by selling its goods and/ or services in the financial year under consideration. While terms like Profit Before Tax or Profit After Tax are self-explanatory, the term Reserves and Surplus included Capital Reserves plus Retained Earnings plus Fair Value Reserves plus Hedging Reserves plus Asset Revaluation Reserves plus Foreign Currency Translation Reserves plus the Statutory Reserves.
The BW Real 500 ranking this year exhibits considerable improvement in key balance sheet parameters including income, assets, and profit and loss. Indian companies are focusing on increasing growth rates and putting their assets to best use. Going by the present indicators, the BW Real 500 list is only set to grow — and swell. In size and scale, the top 50 companies in the BW Real 500 list account for more than 68 per cent of the total income of all 500 companies. The top 50 companies also account for a little over 63 per cent of total assets and income of all the 500 companies put together. Overall, the adverse impact of the pandemic year was visible. The top 10 companies together generated around 12.4 per cent less income compared to the top 10 companies in last year’s list.
Indian Oil Corporation managed to sneak ahead of Mukesh Ambani-led giant Reliance Industries to top the list. And like last year, the oil and gas sector stands tall in the top-10 list occupying the first five positions of the BW Real 500 rankings. These include Indian Oil (Rank 1), RIL (Rank 2), ONGC (Rank 3), Bharat Petroleum (Rank 4) and Hindustan Petroleum (Rank 5). Others in the top 10 include three companies from the Tata Group — Tata Motors (Rank 7), Tata Consultancy (Rank 8), and Tata Steel (Rank 9). Rajesh Exports (Rank 6) gained one position while L&T dropped one place (Rank 10). Some of the noticeable changes in the rankings vis-a-vis last year include the re-entry of telecom giant Bharti Airtel in Top 15 profiled companied. Bharti Airtel (Rank 14) gained two spots. Among those that slipped a bit included Vedanta (Rank 17) and Maruti Suzuki (Rank 21). The auto major was ranked 18 in last year's list. All three companies—Bharti Airtel, Vedanta, and Maruti were in the top 15 list in BW Real 500 Companies list released in 2020.
Understandably, FY21 was the second tough year in succession. With signs of recovery visible, we can only hope that the current year turns out to be the year of revival for everyone. Fingers crossed.
