Holding Companies:

As companies grow, they diversify into related or new businesses. As all the businesses grow, it becomes bit difficult to steer through with a single management. Some companies hive off the management to make them more productive. And at an opportune time these companies may list their subsidaries, resulting in value unlocking for both the parent company and the shareholders. Also listing these holding companies help in retaining talent. Though this is not a certainity, it is definitely a possibility. But a layman investor may not be aware of many of these holding companies and hence may under estimate the real potential of the parent company.

Following are few companies which have sizable holding companies. It makes sense for investors to keep an eye, hand and heart on them !

L&T:

• Larsen & Toubro is a very well known name in the Indian stock market.
• If there is a economic development happening in India, it could not happen without the due share for L&T
• L&T operates through Independent companies and Subsidiaries.
• Independent companies operate as separate business undertakings with dedicated management.
• Independent companies have presence in building factories, transport infra, heavy civil infra, water & renewable energy, power transmission & distribution, metallurgical and material handling, power, heavy engineering, ship building, electrical and automation, machinery and industrial products.
• Subsidary companies of L&T are involved in financial services, hydro carbon engineering, IT and special purpose vehicle (SPV) for infra.
• Financial service subsidary L&T Finance was listed on July 2011. L&T still holds 76.6% stake in L&T Finance.

CESE:

• It is a Sanjiv Goenka group company.
• It's primary business is to generate & distribute power.
• It's subsidary is Spencer's Retail operating 130 stores across 35 cities.
• Spencer retail was started n 1996.
• Spencers reported 14% same store sales growth in FY 2013.
• Apart from spencers, CESE owns and operates 4 thermal plants with installed capacity of 1225 MW.
• It holds distribution licence for Kolkata and Howrah with distribution network for 567 sq km and 2.7 million consumers and 19500 circuit km of T&D.

M&M:

• M&M is known to be a tractor company, now manufacturing lots of SUV's like Scorpio etc.
• M&M is also known for its passionate, flamboyant chairman Mr.Anand Mahindra.
• Lesser investors know that M&M holds 123 subsidaries, 5 JV's, 12 associate companies across 17 different industries.
• It's span includes aerospace, vehicle aftermarket, agriculture, component, consulting, defense, energy, farm equipment's, financial services, industrial components, IT, leisure and hospitality, logistics, real estate, retail, steel processing and 2-wheelers.
• M&M as a group seems to have mastered the art of developing diverse busiensses and listing them on achieving critical scale. Few examples to substantiate the claim could be : Mahindra Lifespace, M&M financial services, Mahindra holidays, Tech Mahindra to quote a few.
• It's listed subsidiaries are valued at Rs.15029 Cr against a cost of Rs.2735 Cr as on March 2014.
• It;s investment in associate companies is worth Rs.11178 Cr against a cost of Rs.651 Cr.

ICICI Bank:

• It is India's largest private sector bank with total assets of US$99 Billion as on March 2014.
• It has a network of 3753 Branches and 11315 ATM's.
• It's subsidiaries include : ICICI Pru LIC, ICICI Lombard General Insurance, ICICI Pru AMC and ICICI Venture Fund Management Company.
• With FDI in Insurance due to be hiked, the possibility of listing some of the subsidaries is quiet bright.

Apollo Hospital Enterprises:

• It is one among Asia's largest healthcare company with 50 hospitals and over 8600 beds.
• It's subsidaries include Pharmacies, Health insurance and Lifestyle businesses.
• The prospect of Apollo Pharmacies appear promising. It has 1632 stores , with net addition of 129 stores in FY 2014 itself. Revenue from pharmacies grew 24% to Rs.1364 Cr in FY 2014.
• Apollo Munich Health Insurance has 653 Cr of asset under management as on March 2014.
• Apollo Health and Lifestyle is a retail health care business. It includes lifestyle birthing centers called Cradle and Apollo Clinics catering to ailments like liver disease, joint pain, advanced fever and diabetes. Presentely there are 4 birthing centers and 90 Clinics.

 ONGC:

• It is India's largest EPC comapany with consolidated reserve of 2004.14 mtoe (million tonnes of oil equivalent).
• Of this, 32% or 637.34 mtoe of gas reserves is held by it's subsidary ONGC Videsh Ltd (OVL).
• OVL's revenue in FY 2014 is Rs.22224Cr with highest ever net profit of Rs.4445 Cr. 
• OVL operates in 16 countries with 33 projects and cumulative investment of US$ 22.47 billion.
• OVL is investing consistently in overseas assets.
• Considering the current valuation of ONGC, OVL would be worth over Rs.70,000 Cr.

GMR Infra:

• It operates in 4 businesses : Airport, Energy, Highways and EPC.
• Of this Airport contributes 56.5% of revenue and Energy contributes 31.3% revenue.
• Together these 2 businesses contribute 87.8% revenue.
• GMR group holds 92.6% of GMR Energy, which has 2485 MW capacity with another 2968 MW under construction.
• GMR is largest private developer and operator of airports. Delhi and Hyderabad airport has a passenger capacity of 72 million.
• It has won bid for expansion and operation of Mactan Cebu airport in PHillipines for a concession period of 25 years.
• In the highway segment, GMR operates 599 km.