State Bank of India overtakes HDFC in market capitalisation

The market capitalisation of the largest public-sector lender, State Bank of India (SBI), exceeded that of the Housing Development Finance Corporation (HDFC) on Wednesday. At 11:41 am, as per BSE, SBI’s market capitalisation stood at Rs 4,21,732 crore, whereas HDFC’s was at Rs 4,11,757 crore.

The HDFC-HDFC Bank merger will, however, result in a mammoth force to reckon with, both in terms of market capitalisation as well as total assets under management. The total market capitalisation of the merger entity is estimated to be close to Rs 12 lakh crore.

At 12.00 pm, the SBI stock was quoting at Rs 473.10 apiece, up 2.09 percent on the BSE. The scrip has gained after 3 consecutive days of fall and has outperformed the sector by a little over half a percent.

At 12.00 pm, the HDFC scrip, on the other hand, was trading at Rs 2,275 per share, up 0.69 percent on the BSE.

The stock has struggled ever since the initial euphoria surrounding its merger with HDFC Bank died down. The shares of HDFC have underperformed Sensex by over 12 percent year-to-date (YTD).

The HDFC twins' transaction is expected to be complete latest by the fourth quarter of FY24, subject to shareholders, creditors and regulatory approvals, including from RBI, IRDAI, CCI, SEBI and stock exchanges. The share exchange ratio shall be 42 equity shares, credited as fully paid up, of the face value of Re 1 each of HDFC Bank for every 25 fully paid-up equity shares of the face value of Rs 2 each of HDFC.

As far as market capitalisation is concerned, India's biggest oil-to-chemical (O2C) conglomerate Reliance Industries leads the race. It has a market cap of around Rs 18 lakh crore, followed by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) at around Rs 12 lakh crore.

In the banking space, HDFC Bank remains the frontrunner with a market cap of Rs 7.64 lakh crore. In the non-banking financial company (NBFC) space, Bajaj Finance leads with a market cap of Rs 3,62,000 crore.