Monday, February 27 2006 11:33 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Lucknow: Being in news for political or commercial reasons or for its association with country's cricket team, Sahara may have emerged as the biggest Indian Brand with its Chairman Subrata Roy claiming the brand value at 10.5 billion dollars or about Rs 48,000 crore.

Earlier last month, corporate giant Tatas had claimed the brand of their group companies and products was valued at Rs 24,396 crore, saying possibly they were "head and shoulders above anybody."

"Brand Finance, one of the top two global consultants, has valued Sahara brand at 10.5 billion dollars," Roy told sources in an interview when asked about how he rated his group among the business houses in India.

"We have asked the Earnst and Young for valuation of the group," he said, adding that the brand valuation of the group was done more than six months ago.

Both the Tata and Sahara were unsure as to how many Indian entities would have done the brand valuation exercise and therefore refrained from a direct comment on their ranking.

Elaborating, Roy said the comparison between his group and that of Tatas and Reliance (two top business houses) could not be drawn as the latter two were listed entities where as his group was closely held one.

One of the way of valuating a group could be through market capitalisation which may be the case when it comes to Reliance and Tatas, but in "our case market capitalisation mechanism would not work," he said.