Ratan Tata, 80, Chairman, Tata Group. (Image: Reuters)

TCS (Tata Consultancy Services), India’s largest IT company by turnover and the 50-year-old Information Technology behemoth, on Friday, 31 August 2018, briefly topped Rs 8 lakh crore in m-cap (market capitalisation). The IT giant TCS backed by billionaire industrialist, investor and philanthropist Ratan Tata became India’s most valued company according to market capitalisation. On Friday, TCS surpassed the m-cap of Mukesh Ambani-controlled oil-to-textile-to-telecom conglomerate Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) to grab the most valued place among all the listed companies on Indian stock exchanges.

In the extremely volatile trading, TCS share price managed to climb an all-time high level of Rs 2090.50, up 0.53% on Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) while the stock soared to a lifetime high of Rs 2,092, up 0.46% on National Stock Exchange (NSE). On the basis of a record high share price of TCS at Rs 2,090.5, Tata Consultancy Services registered an m-cap of Rs 8 lakh crore (Rs 8,00,363.64 crore) on BSE. TCS shares closed at 2078.20, down 0.06% on BSE on Friday with a market capitalisation of Rs 7.96 lakh crore.

TCS shares have been best performers in the present year so far among all the components of headline indices Sensex and Nifty. TCS share price has advanced a little more than 57% in the 8 months of 2018 to Rs 2,082.4. Earlier in June this year, TCS announced a mega share buyback of Rs 16,000 crore after the successful completion of share repurchase of similar quantum in the previous year. TCS has fixed the share buyback price at Rs 2,100 which now translates to be at a premium of 0.85% from the Thursday’s closing price of Rs 2,082.4 on NSE. The record date for the said buyback was fixed as 18 August 2018.

Earlier this year, TCS rejoiced its investors while announcing the financial results for the year ended 2017-2018 with declaring a bonus issue in a ratio of 1:1 and a final dividend of Rs 29 per equity share. Earlier in July, TCS declared an interim dividend of Rs 4 per equity share.

In the CY 2018 itself, TCS has breached the market capitalisation of Rs 6 and 7 lakh crore respectively. And in April 2018, TCS became the first Indian IT company with a stock market value of $100 billion and the first Indian company after Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries to grab 100 billion dollar mark.