Air India flies high in D

New Delhi, Nov 17: Air India (AI) has been ranked first as per total income in the aviation sector for 2006 edition of the acclaimed Dun&Bradstreet publication titled India's Top 500 Companies.

It includes private sector companies listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange and the National Stock Exchange as well as public sector enterprises.

Private sector companies are shortlisted on the basis of market capitalisation on the BSE and NSE. Listed companies profiled account for over 75 per cent of the BSE market capitalisation while the total income of top 500 accounts for 50 per cent of India's GDP.

Another feature of the publication is the sectoral classification of companies based on revenues. A company should generate at least 35 per cent of its revenue from a particular sector in order to be classified under that sector.

The companies are rated after a thorough research by the D&B analyst team that developed a proprietary financial model with seven parameters -- total income, net profit, net worth, net profit margin, net profit/net worth, growth in total income and growth in net profit.

Final rankings of the companies are based on a composite score of these weighted parameters.

UNI