Billionaire Mukesh Ambani's oil-to-telecom conglomerate Reliance Industries Ltd slipped 59 places to rank 155th on the 2021 Fortune Global 500 list released on Monday. Reliance took a beating on the rankings as revenues dropped owing to the COVID-19 pandemic. This is its lowest ranking since 2017. Walmart continues to top the Fortune list with a revenue of $524 billion, followed by China's State Grid at $384 billion.
The revenue growth of early birds or companies that have declared their Q4FY24 (March quarter) numbers is the highest in the last four quarters. The 178 companies (excluding their listed subsidiaries) that declared their results have reported a sales growth rate of 13.2 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y), taking aggregate revenue to Rs 9.1 trillion. Including other income, growth is at 16 per cent, the highest in the last four quarters.
Even four years after splitting the Reliance empire, the Ambani brothers still seem to be washing dirty linen in public: the latest battle is over gas pricing.
The optic fibre cable infra was with Jio Digital Fibre and the tower infra with Reliance Jio Infratel
The FIR by the ACB was registered a day after Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said the agency has been told to probe their alleged collusion over hike in prices of natural gas from KG basin.
Operating margins have been the primary driver of corporate earnings in India in recent quarters, despite revenue growth suffering from weak consumer demand. Companies across sectors have reported a sharp improvement in earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation (Ebitda) margins over the past two years, benefiting from lower commodity and energy prices. Higher margins more than compensated for slower revenue growth, resulting in double-digit growth in net profit for five consecutive quarters.
This is the case even though the benchmark index is only 5 per cent below its all-time high. The list of stocks trading at a discount primarily consists companies in the automotive, banking, oil and gas, insurance, healthcare, and metal sectors.
RIL's bet on burgeoning consumer base and foray into new businesses such as telecom, retail, and digital services vastly expanded its business
Saudi Aramco chairman and head of the Kingdom's cash-rich wealth fund PIF Yasir Othman Al-Rumayyan will join the board of Reliance Industries Ltd as an independent director in a precursor to a $15 billion deal. Reliance chairman and Asia's richest man Mukesh Ambani, who had two years back disclosed the talks to sell a 20 per cent stake in the company's oil-to-chemical unit to Saudi Aramco, announced the appointment of Al-Rumayyan at the company's annual meeting of shareholders. Harvard educated Al-Rumayyan, 51, will replace Yogendra P Trivedi, 92, who has expressed a desire to retire, Ambani said. On the sale of a 20 per cent stake in the O2C business, he said the deal is likely to conclude this year.
After agreeing to sell 30 per cent stake in the 23 blocks in India to BP, Mukesh Ambani is reportedly looking for buyers for its gas transportation and marketing company.
Reliance Industries' (RIL's) consumer business is expected to lead earnings growth in the Q3FY24 performance, according to analysts. While the energy business is expected to show sequential weakness, the consumer business, especially retail, is estimated to show strong growth. The oil-to-telecom conglomerate will announce its Q3FY24 financial results on Friday.
Reliance has a 24 per cent conversion rate of 'oil-to-chemicals' at present and may be targeting 70 per cent conversion.
Reliance had committed to drill 22 wells in the Dhirubhai-1 and 3 fields or D1, the largest of 18 gas discoveries in the block KG-DWN-98/3 or KG-D6 block in the Bay of Bengal, by April 2011 to produce 53.4 million standard cubic meters of gas per day (mscmd).
Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries Ltd on Wednesday told the Supreme Court that the demerger scheme worked out with his brother Anil Ambani was categorical that the gas supplies from the KG Basin to his group was not for trading and meant for promoting power generation plant.
Equity investors suffered a massive loss of Rs 31 lakh crore on Tuesday as markets went into a tailspin with the BSE Sensex tumbling nearly 6 per cent as vote counting trends showed the BJP may not have a clear majority in the Lok Sabha polls. Erasing the record-rally of the previous trade, the 30-share BSE Sensex cracked 4,389.73 points or 5.74 per cent to settle at 72,079.05. During the day, the benchmark tanked 6,234.35 points or 8.15 per cent to hit a nearly five-month low of 70,234.43.
Oil regulator PNGRB has approved the tariff that billionaire Mukesh Ambani-owned East-West pipeline will charge for transporting gas from fields off the east coast to users.
Among the Sensex firms, Nestle rose the most by 4.66 per cent. NTPC rose by 2.16 per cent, Reliance Industries by 1.53 per cent, State Bank of India by 1.04 per cent and Hindustan Unilever by 1.03 per cent. ITC, Power Grid and Bajaj Finance were the major gainers. Wipro, Tata Consultancy Services, HCL Technologies, Tata Steel, Bajaj Finserv and Maruti were among the laggards.
This is the highest any Indian company has been ranked on the Fortune Global 500 list.
Billionaire Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries Ltd's plans for investing Rs 75,000 crore in solar, batteries, fuel cells and hydrogen could create valuation of $36 billion (Rs 2.6 lakh crore) for the new energy business, Wall Street brokerage Bernstein Research said in a report. Reliance currently has three verticals -- oil-to-chemical (O2C) business that houses its oil refineries, petrochemical plants and fuel retailing business; digital services that comprises telecom arm Jio; and retail including e-commerce. New Energy will be the fourth vertical. At the company's annual general meeting of shareholders last month, Ambani announced a plan to invest Rs 75,000 crore in a new energy business over the next 3 years in the next stage in its transformation.
Corporate India reported high double-digit growth in net profit for the fourth consecutive quarter in October-December 2023 (Q3FY24), driven by margin gains from lower prices of raw material and energy.
Reliance beat analyst expectations on almost all parameters
Reliance Industries Holdings will now directly own stakes in Reliance Ports & Terminals, Reliance Gas and Transportation and Reliance Utilities and Power.
Anil Ambani-owned Reliance Energy has approached state-owned gas utility GAIL (India) Ltd for transportation of gas to its proposed 4,000 MW power plant at Dadri.
It also demanded Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to clarify on supply of gas and its price from RIL-operated fields.
The MoU says the gas supply agreement is with Reliance Energy and for the Dadri power project, senior counsel Harish Salve representing RIL said. "Nowhere does it say that the gas will go to RNRL," Salve told the division bench of Justices J N Patel and K K Tated. REL and RNRL are both Anil Ambani group companies.
A fall in crude oil price and Aramco's $75 billion annual dividend commitment may have delayed Saudi company picking a stake in Reliance Industries Ltd's oil-to-chemical unit (O2C), research firm Jefferies said. Richest Indian Mukesh Ambani had in August 2019 announced talks for the sale of a 20 per cent stake in the O2C business, which comprises its twin oil refineries at Jamnagar in Gujarat and petrochemical assets, to the world's largest oil exporter. The deal was to conclude by March 2020 but has been delayed for reasons not disclosed by either company.
A report, by DeGoyler and MacNaughton, has put a question mark on the future production from the five ONGC discoveries.
HSBC has cut Reliance Industries to 'underweight' from a 'neutral' rating.
Very little notice, however, has been taken of the fact that Reliance Gas Transportation and Infrastructure Ltd, which set up the pipeline network for transport of this gas which has had rival users clamouring for government priority, is no longer owned by RIL, but by the latter's chairman and managing director, Mukesh Ambani. The change took place three years earlier and went largely unnoticed, even though RGTIL is crucial for RIL's burgeoning gas business.
The proposed reorganisation plan by Reliance Industries Ltd to transfer its refining, marketing and petrochemical (oil-to-chemicals) businesses to a wholly-owned subsidiary is a step towards facilitating participation by strategic investors in the unit, Fitch Ratings said on Tuesday. The reorganisation of the business in Reliance O2C Limited (O2C) "will have a neutral impact on RIL's credit metrics and rating," it said in a statement. The transfer will be on a "slump sale basis", subject to attaining the requisite approvals.
Equity benchmark Sensex rebounded 454 points on Thursday, boosted by gains in index heavyweight Reliance Industries amid a positive trend in global markets.
Adani group opened a $1.2 billion copper plant, bought a port in Odisha, raised stakes in a cement company and stitched an alliance with rival Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries, all in a matter of one week in signs that the apples-to-airport conglomerate has shrugged off the Hindenburg effect and is back to rapid expansion spree. In the last one week, Adani group has through regulatory filings and press statements announced expansions and investments in its mainstay ports business, diversification into metal refining, fund infusion into a two-year-old cement foray and continuing progress in the commissioning of its mega solar project.
The old guard is still involved in broad corporate decision-making, but quite a few new business heads have started making their mark at the group
The company seeks appointment of independent international experts to verify its claims.
The company had received a loan restructuring package from banks under the 5/25 scheme last year.
Media has raised the issues that new pricing to benefit Reliance Industries.
The lack of mutually acceptable arbitrators has delayed the resolution of the two-and-a-half-year-old dispute between Reliance Industries Ltd and the government of India over the recovery of $2.376 billion worth of investment in the KG-D6 gas block.
"There are five Indian and six foreign companies which have submitted expression of interest (EoI) for buying stake in the gas transportation company (RGTIL)," a source privy to the development said.
The revised GSMA was signed pursuant to the Supreme Court's May 7 judgement, turning down RNRL's demand for cheap gas from RIL based on a family agreement.
Fact that RIL will get the much required support from another segment like shale gas is a big positive for the stock.