Drill — "Unidentified industries" (India edition)¶
Why this drill: a company's economics leave fingerprints on its financial statements — margins, capital intensity, working capital, leverage — long before you read a word of its annual report. This classic exercise asks you to identify twelve real Indian companies from their ratios alone. It trains the reflex that every number in a set of accounts should make sense for that kind of business, which is the foundation of both analysis and forensics.
Take after: Module 04 (04.2 Margins, 04.3 Returns on capital, 04.4 Working capital). Time: 45 minutes. Materials: this page only. No searching.
The twelve businesses¶
Each column below is one of these twelve large Indian listed companies. Match each letter to a business.
- An IT services exporter (software development and outsourcing for global clients)
- A large private-sector bank
- A home and personal-care FMCG company (soaps, detergents, foods, beverages)
- A value supermarket chain that owns most of its stores
- A passenger-car manufacturer
- A cement manufacturer
- An integrated steel producer with operations in India and Europe
- A power utility, mostly regulated thermal generation
- A pharmaceutical company (specialty and generic drugs, large US business)
- A telecom operator (mobile, broadband, with African operations)
- An airline
- A real-estate developer with a large rental (office and mall) portfolio held in a joint venture
The data¶
Consolidated figures for FY2026 (year to 31 March 2026), ₹ crore or as stated. Ratios are computed from the published accounts as compiled by Screener.in. "n.a." means not meaningful or not reported for that business. "Debt" includes lease liabilities where the company reports them as borrowings.
| Metric (FY2026) | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue (₹ Cr) | 84,962 | 64,468 | 1,87,385 | 68,821 | 3,48,615 | 58,462 | 8,194 | 1,83,316 | 2,67,021 | 2,32,140 | 2,10,973 | 88,512 |
| Operating margin (%) | 14.2 | 23.3 | 29.6 | 7.5 | n.a. | 28.2 | 17.7 | 11.7 | 27.1 | 14.8 | 55.2 | 19.2 |
| D&A / revenue (%) | 12.7 | 2.1 | 10.5 | 1.5 | 1.2 | 5.0 | 1.7 | 3.7 | 2.1 | 5.1 | 25.0 | 5.2 |
| Interest / revenue (%) | 7.0 | 0.6 | 7.4 | 0.2 | 53.2 | 0.6 | 2.4 | 0.1 | 0.5 | 3.1 | 10.2 | 2.1 |
| Net margin (%) | −2.8 | 23.4 | 14.7 | 4.3 | 22.7 | 19.7 | 53.9 | 8.0 | 18.5 | 4.7 | 16.0 | 9.3 |
| Other income / revenue (%) | 3.2 | 7.6 | 1.4 | 0.1 | 42.1 | 3.2 | 22.3 | 2.5 | 0.0 | 0.3 | 1.4 | 0.5 |
| Asset turnover (×) | 0.62 | 0.81 | 0.34 | 2.33 | 0.07 | 0.54 | 0.11 | 1.23 | 1.47 | 0.78 | 0.39 | 0.63 |
| Fixed assets incl. CWIP / total assets (%) | 46.5 | 73.1 | 72.3 | 72.5 | 0.3 | 33.1 | 5.8 | 29.8 | 18.8 | 70.3 | 76.9 | 76.1 |
| Investments / total assets (%) | 20.3 | 5.5 | 4.3 | 0.0 | 26.1 | 22.8 | 29.5 | 51.6 | 18.8 | 2.4 | 3.5 | 4.8 |
| Debt / equity (×) | 11.2 | 0.0 | 1.3 | 0.1 | 6.3 | 0.1 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.1 | 0.9 | 1.3 | 0.3 |
| Debtor days | 3 | 19 | 71 | 1 | n.a. | 97 | 38 | 11 | 93 | 8 | 14 | 25 |
| Inventory days | n.a. | 61 | n.a. | 37 | n.a. | 363 | n.a. | 31 | n.a. | 184 | n.a. | 206 |
| Payable days | n.a. | 169 | n.a. | 8 | n.a. | 232 | n.a. | 61 | n.a. | 136 | n.a. | 217 |
| Working-capital days | −129 | −23 | −54 | 18 | n.a. | 54 | 245 | −29 | 38 | −56 | −222 | −57 |
| ROCE (%) | 5 | 28 | 9 | 17 | n.a. (ROE 14) | 21 | 6 | 19 | 63 | 13 | 18 | 13 |
| CFO / operating profit (%) | 195 | 73 | 92 | 67 | n.a. | 75 | 438 | 89 | 72 | 102 | 105 | 90 |
| Investing outflow / revenue (%) | 2.3 | 5.7 | 20.1 | 6.1 | n.a. | 17.8 | −8.8 | 8.0 | 4.5 | 6.2 | 26.6 | 10.7 |
How the ratios are defined
Operating margin = operating profit (before depreciation, interest, other income and tax) ÷ revenue. Inventory and payable days are measured on cost of materials, so they can look very high for businesses with small material costs. Working-capital days = (current assets − current liabilities, excluding cash and debt) ÷ revenue × 365; negative means suppliers, customers or advances fund the business. For the bank, "revenue" is interest earned and "debt" is deposits plus borrowings. For one company, FY2026 net profit includes a large one-off gain; for another, the share of profit from a joint venture sits in other income. Spotting those is part of the drill.
Your task¶
- Match each letter to a business (write your answers before opening the key).
- For each match, write the two ratios that decided it and one sentence explaining why those ratios fit that business model.
- For the three you found hardest, write what additional ratio would have settled it.
- Bonus: which company has the highest ROCE, and what feature of its business model explains it? Which has the lowest, and is that structural or cyclical?
Scoring: 1 mark per correct match (12), 1 mark per sound two-ratio justification (12), up to 6 marks for the bonus and the "hardest three". 30 marks in all; 22+ is strong.
Hints (open only if stuck, and deduct 1 mark per hint)
- Look first for the extremes: the lowest asset turnover, the highest D&A, the highest debt/equity, the lowest operating margin with the highest asset turnover.
- Which business collects cash before it delivers the service, and which is paid by customers in advance for property it has not yet finished?
- Which company pays its suppliers in a week?
- Which business has no inventory, 90+ debtor days and almost no fixed assets?
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