This is the sixth special featured in this magazine since the section was launched in December 2003. And, surprise, surprise-as you can gather, this really, er, surprised us-there's some degree of overlap. For instance, five of the companies on this list count among our 20 Companies To Watch In 2004 and two, among our Fastest Growing Companies. Clearly, two of our unaired assumptions-one, about companies that could do well in the future not exactly rewarding investors at this point in time, and two, about fast growth not really translating into immediate rewards for the shareholder-now sound horribly fallacious. The good news: if our listings indeed be a sure-fire route to wealth, it might make sense to revisit them. Sorry, we have no extra copies of old issues.

-Narendra Nathan

Venu Srinivasan/ CEO: Enjoying the spoils of victory

TVS MOTOR
4-stroke Fast Tracker

From a two-wheeler manufacturer that most people had written off (share price in September 2001: Rs 65) to India's most investor-friendly company (its share price touched Rs 1,100-levels in late 2003, and the company opted for a 10-for-1 stock split to enhance liquidity), TVS Motor has come a long way in a short time. Attribute that to Victor, the company's best-selling, indigenously developed four-stroke motorcycle. TVS was quick to share the gains with its shareholders: in 2000-01, it declared a dividend of 70 per cent and in subsequent years this figure rose to 90 per cent and 120 per cent. And although the company's profits for the three months ended December 31, 2003, saw a slight dip as compared to the corresponding period in 2003 (largely because of declining sales of the oldest motorcycle in its portfolio, Max), analysts see no cause for concern. TVS will launch eight new two-wheelers, including six motorcycles over the next 15 months and is eyeing manufacturing options in Indonesia and the Philippines. "We believe the CEO is only the managing trustee of the shareholders," says Venu Srinivasan, CMD, TVS Motor. Well, this trustee has delivered.

-Nitya Varadarajan

Rajivranjan Bajaj/ Joint MD: Everything adds up

BAJAJ AUTO
Ace Rider

Not too long ago, Bajaj Auto was #4 in India's booming motorcycles market and #1 in its flagging scooters one. Today, post a product-led strategy orchestrated by joint MD Rajivranjan Bajaj, the company is #2 in the motorcycles market with a 25 per cent share. And apart from taking on leader Hero Honda, it wants to go global. And happy investors-the company's average dividend over the past three years is 120 per cent-know the entire story. "Bajaj gives us information on the industry and briefs us regularly," says Kalpesh Parekh, an analyst at Mumbai brokerage ASK Raymond James. That isn't an empty claim: Bajaj Auto is among the few companies that give out product-wise revenue break-ups. It has helped.

-Swati Prasad

M.S. Ramachandran/ CMD: It isn't just about refining

INDIAN OIL CORPORATION
Fruits Of Integration

M.S. Ramachandran is on a high. The 59-year-old CMD of Indian oil Corporation (IOC) has just seen his company grow its net profit for the three months ended December 31, 2003, by 209 per cent (as compared to the corresponding period of 2002) to a whopping Rs 2,403 crore. Much of this has come on the back of improved gross refining margins, up from Rs 134 per tonne in 2002 to Rs 182 in 2003. However, it is his forays into exploration (IOC recently acquired a 35 per cent stake in Premier Oil's Cachar Block in Assam) and into ventures in Sri Lanka and Mauritius that is making investors in India's largest commercial enterprise happy (sales: Rs 1,19,848 crore in 2002-03). "By entering into exploration and by making forays abroad, IOC is clearly derisking its business from the volatility in oil prices that affects refining margins," says Sandeep Biswas, Senior Manager, Accenture Consulting. That it is.

-Ashish Gupta

Subir Raha/CMD: Its quest for the holy grail is global

ONGC
Truly Black Gold

Any company that announces an interim dividend of 140 per cent for the year and revenues for the three months ended December 31, 2003, of Rs 7,354 crore belongs in this list. Most readers probably know all there is to about Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), courtesy the company's high-decibel advertising blitz in the run-up to its IPO. Here is an encapsulation: the company accounts for 84 per cent of India's annual production of oil and gas; its wholly-owned subsidiary ONGC Videsh is involved in exploring oil in Sudan, Vietnam, Russia, Myanmar, and Angola; it is investing Rs 3,700 crore in deepwater oil exploration over the next five years; and Chairman Subir Raha hopes to transform the state-owned behemoth into a $100 billion (Rs 4,600 crore) integrated oil and gas major over the next five years. Then, as Sanjay Kaul, Principal Consultant (Oil & Gas Group), PricewaterhouseCoopers, points out, "Better technology will reduce the costs of crude and gas production, but the import price parity at which crude will be sold provides a handsome premium." It shows.

-Ashish Gupta

Brian Tempest/CEO-designate: Not all in the family for this one

RANBAXY LABORATORIES
Governance Play

How investor friendly can it get when the chairman of the company is an independent director? Ranbaxy Laboratories created history of sorts when it elected Tejendra Khanna, a retired IAS officer and a former Lt. Governor of Delhi, as its Chairman in July 1999. The company's board, which has 10 independent directors out of 13, also adopted a written internal code of corporate governance the same year. Some analysts are not convinced with the reasons being proffered for the exit of CEO D.S. Brar, but none has reason to complain about Ranbaxy's dividend history (an average of 108 per cent over the past three years).

-Sahad P.V.

D. Krishna/ Additional Chief Executive: Restructuring for growth

LIC HOUSING FINANCE
Stock With A View

Investors love growth. And of that, LIC Housing Finance has plenty. Over the last five years, it has grown its disbursements by 27 per cent year on year, and despite the burgeoning base, there's plenty of head room. Says Sunil Shah, MD, HDFC Securities: "The company is well focussed and, therefore, should grow at 25 per cent CAGR for the next two years." Besides, as the interest cost of the funds it borrows from parent LIC comes down, LIC Housing's margins should improve further. Meanwhile, Additional Chief Executive D. Krishnan is responding to the industry's fierce competition by restructuring. He's splitting the company's 115 offices into back offices (20) and marketing offices (95). To increase recovery, he has appointed special recovery officers-150 of them. "It is a novel way of managing defaults," says Krishnan. All investor-friendly ideas are welcome.

-Narendra Nathan

M.Y. Khan/Chairman: It's not all happenstance

JAMMU & KASHMIR BANK
Banker Of Choice

If Jammu & Kashmir Bank (J&K Bank) did not enjoy a special status (it's a banker to the state government and Reserve Bank of India's official agency in the state), would it still be a stockmarket darling? Perhaps. Its NPA as a percentage of total advances is a bare 1 per cent, it's got a finger in the insurance pie (with MetLife), and it is spreading out to other parts of the country. Recently, the bank, whose April-December profits jumped 31 per cent to Rs 308 crore, roped in PricewaterhouseCoopers to formulate a business plan, including issues such as succession planning and hr. "We want to be a leading player in the sector," says Pervez Ahmed, Company Secretary.

Going by its stock price, up 450 per cent to Rs 500 in the last 12 months, its 50,000 shareholders do seem to think that it stands a fair chance.

-Kushan Mitra

Prashanto Banerjee/ CMD: Architect of the transformation

GAIL
All Charged Up

When GAIL says "gas and beyond" it actually means it. Till a couple of years ago, it was just a gas transmission company. Today, headed by CMD Prashanto Banerjee, it's an integrated player present in every point of the value chain-from exploration and production to marketing of natural gas. The market has rewarded GAIL's transformation by bumping its valuation up from Rs 5,328 crore in December 2001 to Rs 19,175 crore currently. While its earnings last year were an impressive Rs 1,639 crore, it could rise even further, considering that gas prices are still marked down by the government to 40 per cent of international prices.

-Ashish Gupta

Deepak Parekh/ Chairman: Business, the clean way

HDFC
House Of Trust

The management focus is on ensuring value creation for all its stakeholders," says Keki Mistry, Managing Director, HDFC. Coming from anybody else, it would have been a mere platitude. But this is HDFC. For generations, investors have come to trust the housing finance major under Deepak Parekh, and before that his uncle H.D. Parekh. "HDFC is excellent in terms of balance sheet disclosures," notes Jigar Shah, Head of Research, K.R. Choksey Securities. Unlike some other companies, HDFC has had an investor grievance cell for the past 11 years, and currently boasts of a dozen staff, four of whom are qualified company secretaries.

-Shilpa Nayak

Naveen Jindal/ Executive VC and MD: God of small things

JINDAL STEEL & POWER
Steel Also Glitters

The Delhi-based O.P. Jindal group company would have you, the investor, know that you aren't merely riding a wave-the steel boom, that is. Rather, the stock is up three times since 2001 to Rs 600 despite a 2:1 split because of the company's professional strength. (Its CEO Vikrant Gujral is an industry veteran of 40 years.) We'll know if that's a stretch when the next steel downturn comes along, but for the moment it seems Jindal Steel & Power can do no wrong. Says Sushil Maroo, Vice President (Corporate Finance): "Our dividends have kept rising over the past few years, and the rationale behind the split was to get the retail investor back into our fold and not make the scrip too unaffordable." Adds Naveen Jindal, Executive VC and MD of the company: "It's about doing the small things right." Apparently, that also adds up to a better big picture.

-Kushan Mitra

A.M. Naik/MD: The future is bright

LARSEN & TOUBRO
Good Genes

As a company founded by technocrats and run thereafter by a board, L&T has traditionally evoked a great deal of trust among its retail investors. And that despite the battles for its control, more recently fought by the A.V. Birla group for the cement business. "It is our Managing Director (A.M. Naik)'s diktat not to have even a single aggrieved investor," says D. Shankar, the company's Compliance Officer. The current fiscal has been exceedingly good for L&T. At Rs 253 crore, its nine-month net profit is up 52 per cent. But what has investors licking their chops is the Rs 17,500 crore of orders on the books.

-Shilpa Nayak

A.K. Purwar/ Chairman: Big Daddy

STATE BANK OF INDIA
A Nimble Colossus

Every month, the deputy Managing Director and CFO of State Bank of India (SBI) receive a status report on investor grievances. But that's not really the reason why the banking behemoth figures on our list. Rather, it's because India's biggest bank is getting bigger and better still. For instance, aggressive loan recovery has lowered its NPA as a percentage of total advances to 2.88 from 4.50 in March 2003, and it is tapping retail business to grow faster. Also, SBI has a long list of subsidiaries and associates that are actually doing well and that, says the bank's Chairman A.K. Purwar, "is adding value". Although SBI's stock price has increased 93 per cent in the last 12 months, analysts feel it is still undervalued, given its dominant position in an economy that is surging. That means SBI investors can expect better returns in the days ahead.

-Narendra Nathan

SUNDARAM-CLAYTON
Values-Driven

For a company that doesn't get traded much on the bourses (simply because the TVS family along with the foreign JV partner owns a huge 80 per cent of the equity) Sundaram-Clayton is a surprise entrant. Then, again, it's not so surprising. The brake actuation systems and castings maker is sister company of our list topper, TVS Motors, and is managed by the same anchored-in-good-old-values CEO, Venu Srinivasan. Despite the auto downturn of the late 90s, Sundaram-Clayton has steadily grown and even won two prestigious awards for quality: The Deming Prize and the Japan Quality Medal. Small wonder, then, that its share price has soared from Rs 100 in 2001, to Rs 601 currently. Says its Executive Director, H. Lakshmanan: "We don't just focus on numbers, but overall corporate values." It shows.

-Nitya Varadarajan

BANK OF INDIA
The Promise Of Clean Up

Ordinarily, investors would steer clear of banks that have high NPAs. And Bank of India (BOI) has Rs 2,000 crore of them, which is nearly 5 per cent of its total advances. So why do investors still love BOI? For one, it has been paying out handsome dividends over the last three years. For example, last year it paid out 30 per cent and this year it has returned 20 per cent already. "Bank of India continues to be a good dividend yield play," notes Vinit Sambre, Analyst, IL&FS Investmart India. More importantly, it is also one of the lowest valued banks in the market today because of its high NPA levels. But its Chairman and Managing Director, M. Venugopalan, has a clear plan. For starters, he has brought in better credit appraisal and monitoring systems to prevent fresh NPAs. And to recover the bad loans already on the books, he's looking to the new Securitisation Act. "We plan to halve our NPAs by the end of next fiscal," says Venugopalan. Investors are watching.

-Narendra Nathan

S. Behuria/CMD: Profits boil over, and mindset changes too

BHARAT PETROLEUM CORP.
A Slick Show

Ever since oil prices were deregulated in April 2002, oil companies have been on a roll BPCL is one of them. That doesn't mean the company has not worked hard at shedding its PSU baggage. "It's been our endeavour to optimise investor returns," says Chairman S. Behuria. BPCL's petrol stations were the first to sport convenience stores and market fuel as branded products. International pricing of fuel has helped bump up its market value from Rs 5,754 crore three years ago to Rs 13,170 crore currently. Is that a slick show or what?

-Shilpa Nayak

Ratan Tata/Chairman: A name you can trust

TATA MOTORS
Back On Fast Lane

In December 2002, when Tata Motors conducted a shareholder satisfaction survey, it scored 6.6 out of 10. Last December, it conducted another such survey, and although the figures are still being compiled, chances are it'll score better. Why? Business is looking good. Passenger car sales are clipping, commercial vehicle sales are also booming because of a revival in demand, and the company is making some big moves-like its recent deal to acquire Daewoo Heavy Commercial Vehicles in Korea for Rs 465 crore. It gives Tata Motors access to the Korean and Chinese markets, besides the Daewoo marque. "We communicate our strategy to our shareholders," says Praveen Kadle, ed (Finance and Corporate Affairs), Tata Motors. This time around, the shareholders are listening.

-Swati Prasad

Baba Kalyani/Chairman: Chasing the top slot

BHARAT FORGE
MNC in the Making

An auto components company that gives region-wise break up of its financial performance? That's Bharat Forge for you. The new Bharat Forge, that is. Not too long ago, the Pune-based manufacturer of forgings was like any other family-managed company in the industry. But over the last few years, it has taken on a totally different mindset. Says a Mumbai-based analyst: "Bharat Forge has become very open and transparent in the last couple of years." Explains Amit Kalyani, the company's VP & CTO: "There's nothing complicated about being investor friendly.'' As Chairman Baba Kalyani chases his dream of becoming the world's largest forgings maker by 2008, he will need his investors solidly behind him. For instance, he needs Rs 500 crore in investment to up capacity and top revenues of Rs 2,000 crore by 2008. Fortunately for him, when a company is growing so fast, its investor-friendly quotient goes up automatically.

-Swati Prasad

Prithvi Raj Jindal/Chairman: Cashing in on the energy sector boom

SAW PIPES
Stuff of Pipedream

In the past 12 months, while the sensex has risen some 80 per cent, P.R. Jindal's Saw Pipes, an object of sympathy in the early 90s, has zoomed three times faster (250 per cent). That's a function of the oil sector, Saw Pipes' primary customer. New pipelines are being constructed in India, and a war-ravaged Iraq will also need to rebuild its pipelines. Jindal's next move: add water pipes to the portfolio to reduce reliance on the oil sector.

-Kushan Mitra

Anil Ambani/ Chairman: Raising the bar

BSES
Surge Factor

If 10 million consumers in Mumbai spread over 384 sq km don't have to worry about outages, it's part courtesy BSES. The Reliance group-owned power distribution company, which actually web casts its annual general meetings, has an impressive reliability rate of 99.99 per cent and the least system loss figure of 11.60 per cent. Now as part of a group that spawned the equity culture in India, BSES may get even more investor savvy. Says Anil Ambani, Chairman, BSES: "Investor friendliness is a core corporate value that we pursue in order to achieve our vision of (being) one of the most admired utility companies in the world." With power distribution just taking off, BSES has the whole country to spread out to.

-Shilpa Nayak

Y. Gopala Rao/Chairman and Managing Director: Can't go wrong with BEL

BHARAT ELECTRONICS
Changed Circuitry

Being a monopoly, at least in certain segments, helps. Just ask Bharat Electronics Limited's (BEL) head honcho Y. Gopala Rao. The PSU, primary supplier of electronics to India's armed forces, is sitting on an order book of Rs 6,000 crore. This fiscal, its nine-month sales grew 32 per cent to Rs 1,777 crore and net profits to Rs 193 crore-a 52 per cent jump. While BEL's civilian forays like manufacture of electronic voting machines, pc motherboards (with Intel) and medical equipment (GE) haven't been as successful, it has managed to triple its turnover and grow net profit eight times over the last 10 years. Says S. Subramanyam, MD, Ascent Securities: "BEL is a good long-term bet." Almost certainly, some investors will vouch for it.

-Venkatesha Babu