State-owned Power Grid Corporation of India (PGCIL) powered ahead on the stock exchanges with its shares nearly doubling to Rs 100, enabling it to overtake other power corporate giants like Reliance Energy (REL) and Tata Power (TPC) in terms of market capitalisation. Shares of PGCIL, which came out with an IPO recently, surged over 93 per cent against its issue price of Rs 52 on its debut at Bombay Stock Exchange, taking its market valuation to over Rs 42,360 crore — 27th position in the overall ranking. PGCIL market value is now higher than REL (Rs 33,071 crore) and TPC at (Rs 19,617 crore). The central transmission utility is now the second most valued power company on the bourses after its state-run counterpart NTPC Ltd, which has a market capitalisation of around Rs 176,000 crore. The scrip settled at Rs 100.65 up Rs 48 on the BSE, while a total of 9.97 crore shares changed hands at the exchange. The scrip had touched an intra-day high of Rs 109.40, which took its market capitalisation above the $10 billion mark. The company owns and operates 61,875 circuit kms of transmission lines across the country. PGCIL would also invest up to Rs 2,000 crore to boost its telecom network in the next two years, its chairman and managing director R P Singh said after the listing. The company’s telecom network, which extends to 60 cities, will be doubled and the government-owned firm will soon foray into the business of retailing its network for entertainment ventures like movies. The company expects to earn a profit of Rs 130-135 crore from the telecom business and Rs 200 crore from consultancy business in 2007-08, he said.
