The study notes that only 24 of the top 500 companies destroyed wealth over the five-year period, signalling unusually broad-based gains across sectors. Motilal Oswal attributes this to the sharp market recovery after the pandemic crash, strong earnings cycles in manufacturing, banking and energy, and a deeper retail investor base that supported valuations.
A striking trend that emerged in the list of the top wealth destroyers is that all the top 10 companies that eroded wealth for shareholders belonged to consumer-facing sectors. The report calls this an unexpected reversal because consumption has historically been one of the most stable pillars of India’s market story.
The pattern suggests that several consumer-facing businesses struggled to regain pre-Covid momentum, faced cost pressures, or lost market share to more agile competitors.
Rajesh Exports topped the list with Rs 105 crore in wealth destroyed, reflecting a CAGR of minus 19% over the study period. Whirlpool India followed with Rs 100 crore wiped out, posting an annual return of minus 11%. Bandhan Bank erased Rs 84 crore, hurt by weak asset quality and muted loan growth.
Vodafone Idea destroyed Rs 71 crore of wealth, although it logged a 17% CAGR on the back of periodic re-rating, yet the overall five-year base effect remained sharply negative.
Dhani Services and Relaxo Footwear each wiped out Rs 44 crore of wealth, while PVR Inox erased Rs 42 crore as the multiplex business grappled with slower footfall recovery and rising competition from streaming platforms. Microfinance lender Spandana Sphoorty lost Rs 24 crore, Zee Entertainment eroded Rs 16 crore and Future Consumer destroyed Rs 15 crore.Together, the top 10 names accounted for Rs 545 crore, or 82% of all the wealth destroyed. The dominance of consumer and retail-led companies in this list underscores the uneven nature of recovery across sectors. While Indian equity markets delivered record wealth creation driven by financials, industrials, energy and capital goods, consumer-facing firms with stretched valuations or structural headwinds were unable to keep pace.
The broader takeaway from the report is that wealth destruction in the Indian market has dramatically reduced and is concentrated in a handful of companies rather than being widespread. This, according to the study, signals the resilience of corporate earnings, the depth of domestic liquidity and the long-term structural strength of the market.
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