India's Reliance climbs on Q2 profit jump

BENGALURU, Oct 30 (Reuters) - Shares of Indias most valuable company Reliance Industries (RELI.NS) rose as much as 2% on Monday after it reported a bigger second-quarter profit late on Friday.

The billionaire Mukesh Ambani-led companys consolidated profit rose 27.4% to 173.94 billion rupees ($2.09 billion) in the three months to Sept. 30 from a year earlier.

The company relies heavily on its mainstay oil-to-chemicals (O2C) business to make money despite its aggressive expansion into retail, telecom and green energy.

A climb in core profit was driven by a sharp increase in refining margins, Jefferies said.

Others said they expected a boost to its retail and telecoms business in the current quarter as well.

“Though the retail business will benefit from a festive quarter and the energy business will benefit from the completion of MJ field ramp-up, we expect steady growth in digital services and a modest pullback in O2C with planned maintenance,\” BOB Capital Markets said.

Jefferies and BOB Capital both have a “buy” rating on Reliances stock, with “buy” also being the average rating of 32 analysts. The median price target on the stock is 2,853.5 rupees apiece.

Reliances shares - the second-heaviest stock on the bluechip Nifty 50 (.NSEI) index - were last up 1.4%, trimming their decline so far this year to 0.7%.

($1 = 83.2475 Indian rupees)