RCOM's market cap rises above Rs one lakh crore

New Delhi, Feb 2 (UNI) For the first time Reliance Communications' (RCOM) market capitalisation rose over Rs one lakh crore today.

RCOM is among the highest contributors to the rise in Sensex and Nifty over the last five months and its scrip has overperformed Bharti during last three months.

It is the seventh largest Indian corporate in terms of market capitalisation with ONGC, NTPC, RIL, TCS, Infosys, Bharti slightly ahead of it.

Among the private corporates it is the fifth largest in terms of market capitalisation. It covered the Rs 1,00,000 crore market capitalisation in less than 10 months.

Among Asia's five most valuable telecom companies it has a shareholder equity of Rs 20,000 crore.

Net Debt to Equity Ratio further reduces to 0.07:1, providing substantial borrowing capacity to fund future growth. The annualised EBITDA of RCOM is well over Rs 5,000 crore.

The company, from a loss making enterprise with opaque structures at the time of demerger, today has transparent and corporate governance friendly international best practices inculcated across the organisation.

On March 6, RCOM listing had a market capitalisation of Rs 37,550 crore and in June 12 it was included in the BSE Sensex.

On September 14 -- equity issuance to promoters as part of corporate re-organization -- market capitalisation crossed Rs 65,000 crore.

On September 20 -- RCOM market cap touched Rs 70,000 crore for the first time and by October 30 -- its market cap touched Rs 80,000 crore and went on to Rs 90,000 crore by December 1.

By the end of last year, RCOM stock closed the year adding Rs 60,000 to shareholders' wealth in less than 10 months of listing.

During 2006, RCOM has made the largest contribution to the expansion in the value of Indian equities.

On Wednesday, Reliance Communications Ltd posted a whopping 198 per cent increase in its net profit at Rs 924 crore during the third quarter ended December 31, 2006 as against Rs 310 crore in the same period last year.

The revenue grew by 26 per cent at Rs 3,755 crore from Rs 2,991 crore while the EBITDA margin expanded to a record of 41 per cent from 29 per cent, with strong contributions across all businesses.

This performance has lifted Reliance Communications into the select group of companies with annualised EBITDA of well over Rs 5,000 crore, EBITDA margins above 40 per cent, Shareholders Equity of over Rs 20,000 crore and and a Stockmarket Value of nearly Rs 94,000 crore.

The Board of Reliance Communications has approved the global listing of FLAG Telecom.

Reliance Communications has turned around the performance of FLAG Telecom over the past year and aligned it with the Indian franchise.

The company added a record four million wireless customer (net) during the quarter, compared with 2.1 million in the corresponding quarter last year.

At the end of December last year, the company had over 30 million wireless customers on its network, representing a market share of 20.5 per cent of the all India wireless market.

It maintained market share of net wireless customer additions at 20.2 per cent in Q3 FY2007.

UNI