NEW DELHI, Aug 12: Reliance group companies including Reliance Capital, Reliance Industrial Infrastructure and Reliance Petroleum have shot into limelight on the stock exchanges. The rise in prices of these scrips accompanied by surging volumes have seen a relatively higher gain compared with Reliance Industries. For instance, the price of Reliance Capital has more than doubled in about two months driven mainly be rumours.

Reliance Capital's scrip which was trading at Rs 45.50 on June 10, touched its 52-week high of Rs 97.50 (intra-day) on Tuesday, although it closed lower at Rs 93.50. The previous close was Rs 92.75.

On June 10, volumes were as low as 7271 shares while in the last 20 trading sessions average daily volumes have been more than 15 lakh shares. However, the rise earlier was attributed to rumours that the company is going to be merged with Reliance Power. But even though the company has denied these rumours, the stock continues to be on the rise.

However, a broker has a different reasoning for the heightened interest in Reliance Capital. According to him, after the 1:1 bonus from Reliance, operators will shift their focus to Reliance Capital as the equity of the former will double.

Another broker, however, says that ``there is strong rumour in the market that the management is likely to change the focus of Reliance Capital after which the company will not remain purely a finance company. Like most finance company Reliance Capital has a low PE. With the change in focus, the discounting will improve.''

During 1996-97, Reliance Capital announced a net profit of Rs 101.51 crore on a total income of Rs 222.86 crore. On an equity capital of Rs 123.95 crore the net profit translates into an EPS of Rs 8.22. The 1996-97 EPS discounts the current market price by 11.55 times.

One dealer with a leading BSE broker said,``As RIL has announced a bonus, the market is expecting a bonus issue from Reliance Capital as well.'' Interestingly, both Reliance Capital and Reliance Industrial Infrastructure (RIIC) are going into `No-delivery' period from tomorrow on the National Stock Exchange.

The Reliance Industrial Infrastructure stock, too, has a similar run on the bourses. The scrip, which was trading at Rs 35 on July 8 (volumes of only 4000 shares), the stock crossed the Rs 56-level on July 30, with very high volumes of 59700 shares.

On August 7, the scrip touched a 52-week high of Rs 57.75. For 1996-97 the company had reported a net profit of Rs 16.29 crore on an equity capital of Rs 15.10 crore.

There is lot of interest in Reliance Petroleum scrip, too. The scrip price has moved from Rs 14.50 on June 9 to the current level of Rs 22.45. There has been a jump in volumes with the average daily volume of 15 lakh shares per day. However, brokers say with the target price of Rs 25 for the stock there is not much scope for appreciation. The project will go on stream by 1999-end.

Reliance Industries' stock, however, went up from Rs 317 on June 16 to Rs 374 on June 24 on company's announcement of bonus issue in an attractive ratio of 1:1. But after that, it has been moving in the range of Rs 345 to Rs 381. Yesterday the scrip touched its three year high of Rs 382.50 and opened at the same level today morning. On NSE, Reliance touched a high of Rs 385.75.

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