Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) is going to hold its annual general meeting (AGM) on Thursday where some big announcements are expected to be made. One of the much-awaited decisions is he proposed stake sale in its oil-to-chemical (O2C) business to Saudi Aramco.
“RIL’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) has historically been a keenly watched event (previously attended by 3,000 shareholders when held in physical format and last year saw 300,000 concurrent viewers of the virtual AGM across 42 countries and 468 cities) given that it has been one of the top 3 companies by market capitalisation in India, has a large free float and a large public shareholding (more than 3 million non institutional shareholders),” brokerage HSBC Global Research said in a report.
According to a June 15 report from financial services company Bank of America (BofA) Corporation, RIL may name Yasir Al-Rumayyan, chairman of Saudi Aramco and governor of the kingdom’s wealth fund Public Investment Fund, as a director on its board during the AGM.
Market analysts describe how the appointment will be beneficial for RIL. “Once the appointment is announced, an investment to the tune of ₹1.25 lakh crore to ₹1.50 lakh crore would come to Reliance Industries Limited or RIL, which is currently a debt-free company,” Ravi Singhal, Vice Chairman at GCL Securities, told Livemint.
He also said that in case of surplus liquidity, RIL may give dividend to its shareholders, adding that the group’s share price can go up to ₹3,000 mark in the next 6-9 months.
RIL chairman Mukesh Ambani had announced selling company’s 20% stake in the oil-to-chemicals (O2C) business, which comprises its twin oil refineries at Jamnagar in Gujarat and petrochemical assets, to Aramco during the 2019 AGM, but the deal could not move forward due to multiple reasons.
Reliance, which has also won the backing of Qualcomm Inc and Intel Corp for Jio Platforms, has built an in-house 5G solution and an announcement is expected on its rollout at Thursday’s AGM.
Reliance Jio, along with Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea, was given the spectrum in May to conduct 5G trials across select cities in India. The duration of the trials at present is six months. This includes a time period of two months for procurement and the setting up of the equipment.
