DLF - second most valued private firm in India

Real estate giant DLF on Friday pipped Bharti Airtel to become the country's second most valued private sector company after Reliance Industries, following a surge of over five per cent in its share price.

In an overall flat market, shares of DLF rose by 5.31 per cent at the BSE to close at Rs 1,063.70 -- more than double its IPO price in less than six months of listing.

The company's market capitalisation surged to Rs 1,81,343 crore at the end of today's trading, marking a gain of about Rs 9,150 crore over the previous day. This is second highest among private sector companies after country's most valued firm RIL, which has a market cap of over Rs 4,21,000 crore.

This is estimated to have swelled DLF Chairman K P Singh's wealth to more than 40 billion dollars (about 1,60,000 crore). Last month, Singh was named as world's richest realtor with a wealth of 35 billion dollars by Forbes magazine. Forbes had calculated Singh's wealth on the basis of DLF share price on November 2, since when the scrip has gone up by 14.3 per cent.

Today's rally, which followed reports that DLF was mulling over listing its various subsidiaries, made it the country's fourth most valued firm across both private and public sector companies.

RIL is followed by two public sector companies ONGC and NTPC in the market capitalisation league at over Rs 2,62,000 and Rs 1,99,000 crore respectively.

DLF was followed by telecom major Bharti Airtel as the country's fifth most valued company with a market value of Rs 1,78,530 crore.

Earlier in the day, shares of DLF touched a life-time high of Rs 1,072.

The surge in DLF shares came along with a sharp rally in other real estate stocks as well, although the benchmark Sensex closed on a flat note with a fall of 9.77 points.

Among the 14 stocks in the BSE realty index, only Phoenix Mills closed in the red (down 1.02 per cent), while Unitech, Omaxe, Parsvnath, Akruti City, Hdil and Peninsula Land rose between 4-8 per cent each.