Big becomes bigger! Reliance Industries market value crosses Rs 18 lakh crore

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

Reliance Industries, India's largest company by market value, on Thursday rallied another 1% to hit a fresh all-time peak of Rs 2,690.90 on BSE. In the process, RIL's market capitalisation crossed the Rs 18 lakh-crore mark.

After underperforming Nifty by 9% in the calendar year 2023, some buying momentum has been seen in RIL shares in the last few days.

In the last two trading sessions, the counter is up around 4%.

As the December quarter earnings season begins today, RIL remains on the top of the buying list of major brokerages. Goldman Sachs had recently increased its target price to Rs 2,885 from Rs 2,660 earlier.

Jefferies has an even higher target price of Rs 3,125.

«We forecast 13% Ebitda growth in FY25E with Jio contributing ~2/3rd share on the back of a tariff hike.

We expect capex to decline in Jio and Retail in FY25E helping improve FCF abating concerns on rise in net debt. We have lowered FY24/25E Ebitda 2%/1% on lower O2C profits,» Jefferies said.

Analysts are keenly awaiting announcements related to the listing of Reliance Jio and Reliance Retail.

CLSA analysts say they find RIL an attractive risk-reward proposition given potential triggers in the next 12-18 months such as an uptick in wireless broadband, mobile tariff hike, operating leverage after recent expansion in retail, and potential IPO of Jio and/or retail units.

Nomura, which has a target price of Rs 2,985 on RIL believes the company will report strong EBITDA growth of 13% YoY in FY25 driven by robust growth across consumer-facing businesses of Jio and Retail, and upstream, while O2C earnings will remain broadly steady.

«Further, RIL to deliver robust FCF generation of INR243bn underpinned by strong EBITDA growth and moderating capex (while