I remember when Chandra decided to accept the new role of chairman of Tata Sons, the TCS stock the very next morning fell because nobody knew that what Rajesh would be able to deliver. Today, Rajesh has decided to move on and we are discussing what exactly six years ago we discussed when Chandra decided to move on.
Stock might have some knee-jerk reaction today, but I think what all of us have seen, meaning I can talk about my personal experience, having seen the sector for last 20 years, over 20 years, and having seen companies like Infosys, Wipro, TCS, large companies like these, they have built very deep management bench and when these companies at that scale are growing at such a high rate, I have seen that they have a lot of leadership at the tier II and tier III levels, meaning you look at these companies, they have given us so many industry-wide CEOs. A lot of business heads in Infosys are actually CEOs of companies across the sector. So, while the stock might have a knee-jerk reaction today and could be down a couple of percentage points, but I do not see it having a meaningful impact on business. And more importantly for TCS’ organisation, my experience over the years, I have seen this company for now 15 years since their IPO days, it is a very process driven organisation. So, I do not want to dilute the impact a leader has. It has a meaningful impact but at the same time, it is an organisation which is very-very process driven. So, market might have some short-term impact, but I do not see it having any impact on their business from medium term to long term perspective.
Wanted to also get in your take on some of the other fresh brokerage notes and in particular on Reliance Industries. We have seen this bout of selling that has kicked in. Jefferies has actually got a buy talking about how there is limited earnings downside, capex peaking out and that retail as well is likely to see steady growth. Your assessment as to how RIL has performed so far and what the view is?
As far as RIL is concerned now, meaning there was a traditional RIL which was oil and gas and now over the last six years what we have seen is their traditional business has just become one-third of their total value of the business and the new businesses, which is telecom and retail, have become bigger drivers of business. And I think both those businesses are growing at a very accelerated pace or a much higher rate.
And more importantly, they are in the process of transitioning the traditional oil and gas business to what they call new energy business which will be aligned much more to cleaner fuels and clean energy and zero carbon footprint. So, in that sense, I think RIL from our perspective continues to remain a growth stock. It is a company which can deliver healthy growth because both retail and telecom businesses are delivering very strong growth and they are at a point where even the traditional business, oil and gas business, is doing well because of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, refining margins have been relatively strong. So, I think stock will continue to do well over a medium term to long term.
