Reliance has significant investments in telecom, consumer retail and media businesses in India.
Last November, a lawyer for Future Retail Limited (FRL) told Delhi high court that Amazon is interfering with its lawful business and thousands may lose their jobs and FRL may go bankrupt. Senior advocate Harish Salve, who appeared for FRL, likened Amazon to East India Company. Senior advocate Gopal Subramanium, who represented Amazon, told the Future counsel to keep the "East India Company" rhetoric aside, as Amazon has invested $6.5 billion all over India and created 900,000 jobs. This drama played out in the case in which Amazon has challenged Future's $3.4-billion deal with Reliance, alleging the retailer's deal breached an agreement with the American e-commerce firm.
With RIL's market capitalisation crossing the Rs 11-trillion mark on Friday, Ambani is ahead of Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the 10th and 11th richest, respectively, and behind Zara founder Amancio Ortega on the Forbes Real-time Billionaires List.
The Harvard alum has known the Yale alum for ages, but hit it off recently.
There are several discussions going around in the e-health sector for consolidation with key players being PharmEasy, 1mg, Medlife and Netmeds. According to reports, Reliance Jio is in talks with Netmeds to acquire the latter.
In January, Visa's chief executive officer, Al Kelly, said during an earnings call that "there's been a burst of the balloon in valuations in the fintech world". Noting that the trend of lower valuations "is a helpful characteristic of the current environment", he added: "We will look for capabilities and management teams that will bring more value to Visa than we can bring ourselves." Data from KPMG's Pulse of Fintech H2'22 shows that global fintech investment - via mergers and acquisitions (M&As), private equity (PE) and venture capital (VC) firms - at $164.1 billion in 2022, was down 31 per cent over the year before. Indian fintechs held up better during this timeframe, attracting $6 billion, or a fall of 24 per cent.
Besides the pandemic that resulted in higher interest rates, the default by Future Retail has dealt a blow to investor sentiment.
VCs have been especially bullish about India.
Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani on Thursday said Jio and Google have jointly developed a power-packed and affordable smartphone 'JioPhone Next', which will be available in the market from September 10. Ambani promised that JioPhone Next will be the most affordable smartphone not just in India but globally. Speaking at RIL's annual general meeting, Ambani asserted that an ultra-affordable 4G smartphone is essential to make India '2G-mukt' (free of 2G).
The partnership will also see the two parties cooperate on technology initiatives, including development of affordable smartphones.
Of the 1,145 offers made this year, consulting firms made up 34 per cent, followed by banking, financial services and insurance, pharma/healthcare, IT/ITeS and FMCG/retail.
With the government reducing the net worth for new entities in fuel-marketing space to Rs 250 crore, the market is open for new players like Total, Adani, and Saudi Aramco -- and even supermarkets - to open fuel outlets.
Reliance announced a rights issue of Rs 53,125 crore, which it said was the biggest in India.
Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) and two other public sector oil firms will install 22,000 electric vehicle (EV) charging stations over the next 3-5 years to support the nation's target to reduce its carbon intensity and reach net zero emissions by 2070. IOC, the country's largest state-controlled refiner by capacity, will set up EV charging facilities at 10,000 fuel outlets over the next three years, chairman Shrikant Madhav Vaidya said. Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) said it will set up 7,000 stations over the next five years while Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) has plans for 5,000 stations.
PharmEasy has acquired Medlife for an undisclosed amount, the e-pharmacy unicorn said on Tuesday. The deal will make PharmEasy the largest player in the domestic online pharmacy sector, with the combined entity set to serve 2 million customers a month.
Global oil majors may be teaming up with investment funds that are already in the race to acquire Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL), a document detailing steps needed to complete India's biggest privatisation showed. Billionaire Anil Agarwal's Vedanta group as well as two US funds -- Apollo Global and I Squared Capital - had last year submitted initial bids to buyout the government's entire 52.98 per cent stake in India's third-biggest oil refiner and second-largest fuel retailer. Detailing the 'Next Step', the 'Brief Note on BPCL Disinvestment' said Transaction Advisor and Asset Valuer are to submit an inception report, bidders have to complete due diligence of the company and sale purchase agreement has to be finalised.
IOC has not yet taken a view on the feelers sent by Reliance.
State gas utility GAIL India on Tuesday won rights to retail CNG and piped cooking gas in two of the six cities auctioned and is set to win for another two cities, while its joint venture with Hindustan Petroleum beat Reliance Industries to bag another city.
Capital dumping is being used by foreign e-commerce firms to subsidise and engage in predatory pricing, oil-to-telecom conglomerate Reliance Industries (RIL) has told the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham) in an internal document. The document alleges that this is leading to massive unemployment and financial distress among small merchants and kirana stores. It consists of various recommendations and proposed changes that deal with Press Note 2 of 2018 (PN 2), which RIL wanted Assocham to present to the government, according to sources.
The RIL stock has halved from an all-time high of Rs 1,626 made (intra-day) on January 15, 2008, to on Wednesday's closing figure of Rs 800.55.
While Mukesh is likely to make a foray into the specialty stores, is choosing the same date to launch the much-awaited Reliance Money.
The company is building floating LNG terminal in joint venture Reliance Power.
Indian Oil Corporation on Friday said it plans to invest about Rs 2,000 crore in a joint venture with Reliance Industries for retailing natural gas to households and automobiles.
Earlier in May, Ford India announced that it had dropped its plans to make electric vehicles (EVs) in India, which it intended to export, under the production-linked incentive scheme (PLI). Ford was among 20 companies that had signed a Champion OEM Incentive Scheme under the PLI project with the government in February this year. The decision comes as a blow for the 4,000-odd employees at Ford India's Maraimalai Nagar plant near Chennai and in Sanand, Gujarat. In September last year, the company had announced that it would exit the India market, which it had entered in 1995 through an on-again, off-again joint venture with Mahindra & Mahindra (they split in 1998, signed a JV in 2019 and split again in December 2020), retailing petrol and diesel brands such as the EcoSport, Figo, Aspire, and Endeavour.
According to the agreement, RIL will transfer its existing textile business under the Vimal brand into a newly incorporated company in which RIL will hold 51 per cent stake. The remaining 49 per cent stake will be sold to Ruyi.
In the past few days, many companies, including fashion e-tailer Nykaa, food delivery platform Zomato, logistics and delivery firm Delhivery, insurance discovery platform PolicyBazaar, eyewear retail chain Lenskart, and edtech and online tutoring firm Byju's, have openly spoken about their IPO plans.
Reflective of the conglomerate's ambition to turn into a consumer-driven business, most of the 33 acquisitions in the last financial year were for its digital, retail, or related verticals.
As record stock market rally continues, the value of shares directly owned by next-generation business leaders at 20 major corporate houses has soared over 18 per cent to Rs 17,000 crore.
The case may drag for a few years, experts say, as CAIT and DVM have said they will appeal against the interim relief granted to Amazon.
Experts say local demand, government policies in retail and refining sector are attracting foreign players.
Reliance earned $11.50 for every barrel of crude that it processed during the last three months of the calendar year - almost 60 per cent more than a year earlier.
Ajit Mishra, vice president, Research, Religare Broking, answers your queries.
Having 50 stores in India, it plans to double the number.
Ambani's holding group launched the Indian Super League, an elite competition of newly created teams, in 2014 with the aim of attracting investment and big global names, much like the Indian Premier League has in cricket. 'It was 100% a wasted opportunity'.
Reliance had been trying to bring the brand back to the forefront recently, after years of lull, through new ad campaigns highlighting a youthful range, called Unformal, in workwear.
As India gets ready to roll out one of the largest vaccine programmes, billionaire Mukesh Ambani on Tuesday said his group is working with authorities to provide technology tools and backbone for mass inoculation against COVID-19. Ambani's telecom venture Jio was rolled out four years back, offering free voice calling and dirt-cheap data. Today, Jio is India's largest telecom operator with over 400 million users, each connected to the internet. At a Facebook event, Ambani said the government's digital push kept the country running even during the pandemic and is now helping in the rollout of one of the largest vaccination programmes.
Bharti Retail launched its first mall, The Pavilion, in Ludhiana.
Analysts attribute this outperformance to the government's proactive economic reform measures
Unlike RIL, the Adani group has not yet brought in any big stakeholders to refinance debt or expand.
Over a third of Ambani's speech was focussed on RIL's plans.
