Tata voted the Most Trustworthy Group in India

A recent poll conducted by Equitymaster shows Tata as the most trusted Indian Group

Mumbai - (26th July 2011) - Equitymaster, India's first finance website, just concluded its poll on 'India's Most Trustworthy Group'. The objective was to find out which corporate entity does the Indian investor trust the most in these days of scams and scandals.

2,671 readers participated in this poll to vote for the Group that they believed was the most credible and transparent in reporting its financial statements such as Annual reports, and Quarterly results.

The poll included Groups such as Infosys, HDFC, Tata, TVS, Anil Ambani Group, Mukesh Ambani Group, L&T, ICICI, Bharti Airtel and Aditya Birla Group.

With a huge majority of 61.21% votes, the Tata Group emerged as the clear winner. Others such as HDFC and ICICI trailed far behind. Infosys came a distant second with barely 16.85%.

Surprisingly, despite the 2G scam, the popularity of the Tatas seemed unaffected. However, the same could not be said for Infosys whose popularity seems to have taken a hit. It makes one wonder if one can attribute it to the change in its leadership (Mr K V Kamath replacing Mr Narayana Murthy as the Chairman).

Appreciating the high standards of ethics of Tatas, a participant commented, "Tata companies are run by honest people. They never cheat and never swindle. Never ever allow their staff to fool people! Especially in financial dealings they protect the employees and the investors."

The results were similar to the poll conducted in 2009 with Tata and Infosys retaining the top two positions.

The Anil Ambani and Mukesh Ambani Groups got less than 2% of the votes each, with Mukesh Ambani led RIL faring a tad better than Anil Ambani's ADAG.

Bharti Airtel ranked the lowest with just 0.90% votes.

There were also some interesting comments and suggestions from readers. One reader even suggested including a 'None of the above' option, showing the utter distrust that's present in the minds of the investors today.

As one reader said, "I do not trust financial statement of any of these companies.....(Satyam computers received Golden Peacock Global Award for Excellence in Corporate in 2008, Satayam also got an award for best Corporate Governance Practices in 2007)."

This poll highlighted a very important change in the investor's mindset. In the days before the financial meltdown, returns from stocks were probably the only criterion for investing. However, all that has changed due to global financial crisis and the recent spate of scams. Sound financial reporting and trustworthy managements are now just as important.

View the detailed reports on the poll here.

About Equitymaster:
Equitymaster is an independent equity research initiative aimed at empowering the investor by giving him honest, unbiased opinions on investing in share markets.

Media Contacts: Sonal Ramachandran: sonal@equitymaster.com, 022 - 61434003