Avenue Supermarts, that runs the popular supermarkets chain D-Mart, joined the prestigious club of companies with Rs 1 lakh crore market capitalisation. Avenue Supermarts share price hit a fresh high of Rs 1,619.95, rallying nearly 2 per cent on the BSE. 

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At 12:05 pm, D-Mart share price was trading at 1599, up 0.3 per cent. At this price, the company's market cap quoted at Rs 99,853.52 crore. On a year-to-date basis, the stock added 35 per cent, while it rallied 150 per cent since its listing in March 2017 against an issue price of just Rs 299. The scrip has gained over 15 per cent in the last two sessions.  

D-Mart stock had more than doubled on the listing day, gaining 115 per cent. The stock had listed at Rs 641 on the BSE. 

Peer comparison: Valuations

Company M Cap (crore) EPS PE
D Mart 1,00,000 12.92 124x
V-Mart 4325 42.94 56x
V2 Retail 1403 9.62 43x
Shoppers Stop 5015 32.42  
Trent 10,575 2.62  

Peer comparison: Return in last six months

Company Return (%)
D Mart 42
V-Mart 80
V2 Retail 22
Shoppers Stop 7
Trent 4

D-Mart is the most profitable retail company in India. The retail chain had 118 stores in 45 cities by January 2017. It added 14 stores (0.5mn sq.ft.) in FY18 taking the total stores to 155 with 24 stores added in FY 18 (21 in FY17. Maharashtra and Gujarat saw just 3 store additions; top 4 clusters added 11 stores while Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan and MP saw fast scale up at low base. 

The company opens at least 10-15 new D-Mart stores each year. 

"D-Mart is creating future engines of growth as it 1) accelerated store openings to 24 in Fy18 2) added just 3 stores in mature clusters of Maharashtra and Gujarat and focused more on less penetrated clusters 3) acquired 50.8% stake of promoters in E‐Commerce JV and 4) increased proportion of higher margin general merchandise and apparel by 160bps. Although expansion into new clusters and E‐ com can lower near term margin expansion, medium term strategy seems intact," said Prabhudas Lilladher in a research note. 

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Last month, promoter Radhakishan Damani completed sale of 62.4 lakh shares of the company to ensure that the firm meets the minimum public shareholding norms. The shares sold constitute 1 per cent of the paidup equity share capital of the company, the company said in an exchange notice.

D-Mart was recently included in the MSCI India Domestic and MSCI India Domestic Small Cap Index, with effect from 1 June.