ITC is one of India's foremost private sector companies with a market capitalisation of nearly US $ 19 billion and a turnover of over US $ 5.1 Billion. ITC has a diversified presence in Cigarettes, Hotels, Paperboards & Specialty Papers, Packaging, Agri-Business, Packaged Foods & Confectionery, Information Technology, Branded Apparel, Personal Care, Stationery, Safety Matches and other FMCG products.
While ITC is an outstanding market leader in its traditional businesses of Cigarettes, Hotels, Paperboards, Packaging and Agri-Exports, it is rapidly gaining market share even in its nascent businesses of Packaged Foods & Confectionery, Branded Apparel, Personal Care and Stationery.ITC's Agri-Business is one of India's largest exporters of agricultural products. ITC is one of the country's biggest foreign exchange earners (US $ 3.2 billion in the last decade). The Company's 'e-Choupal' initiative is enabling Indian agriculture significantly enhance its competitiveness by empowering Indian farmers through the power of the Internet.
This transformational strategy, which has already become the subject matter of a case study at Harvard Business School, is expected to progressively create for ITC a huge rural distribution infrastructure, significantly enhancing the Company's marketing reach.
ITC's wholly owned Information Technology subsidiary, ITC Infotech India Limited, is aggressively pursuing emerging opportunities in providing end-to-end IT solutions, including e-enabled services and business process outsourcing.
ITC's production facilities and hotels have won numerous national and international awards for quality, productivity, safety and environment management systems. ITC was the first company in India to voluntarily seek a corporate governance rating.
At the current market price of 189.1, the market cap of the company stood at Rs. 71264 Crore.The company has generated sales of 3,858.65 Core and a gross profit of 1,475.15 Crore during Q3FY09. The net profits of the company stood at 903.21 Crore. At the current market cap, the company is trading at a PE multiple of 22%.
ITC is a very well diversified into multiple businesses ranging from Cigarettes, Retail, Hospitality etc. as said above, and the business model it follows is having lower risk compare to its peers. The steady market price during the past one year shows this.
The real value of each of its business/subsidiary will be unlocked in future. At this point of time, the company is undervalued company to its businesses and its real value may be unlocked when the markets starts moving up.
References: http://www.itcportal.com