Reliance to partner world leaders for new businesses, says Mukesh Ambani

Bullish on adding further financial muscle to energy-to-retail conglomerate led by him, Mukesh Ambani on Friday said Reliance Industries will partner world leaders for entering new businesses in the country.

Although he was silent on specific details for the future course of action of RIL's entry into financial services and telecom businesses, Ambani said that a partnership-led transformation would be one of the top agenda going forward.

"... transformation is at the top of the Reliance agenda for a renewed organisation that will deliver continuous growth," Ambani said.

Addressing shareholders at the company's 37th AGM here, Ambani listed among the top agenda "a partnership transformation that will enable Reliance to partner with world leaders to enter new business domains in India". He also promised "a business transformation that will fundamentally strengthen the constitution and character of the organisation".

Ambani said Reliance was endowed with a strong balance sheet and it was reinforcing its constitution with the business transformation initiative. "Reliance is forging new partnerships to pursue new growth opportunities," he said, while adding that the group was determined to improve its ranking among global businesses.

Ambani went on to talk about a talent transformation to help it attract best talent in the country and abroad, an innovation-led technology transformation to explore new businesses and a market-transformation to help Reliance explore new consumer markets.

The RIL Chairman and MD said Reliance has transformed many sectors and redefined the way industries operate and has always been able to foresee changes in business trends.

Ambani said the focused efforts would be undertaken to transform Reliance into a "renewed and refreshed organisation prepared for opportunities and challenges of a 21st century world". He said the year 2010 presented the company with opportunities in market growth and for investments across each of its businesses.

At the same time, RIL also had to confront challenges arising out of high commodity and input prices and inflationary trends, he added.

Still, RIL added significantly to its financial strength and its enterprise value has grown to over USD 75 billion, Ambani said.

RIL may stop natural gas supply to non-priority sector : report

RIL has since July last year imposed a pro-rata cut in supplies on all its customers, including fertiliser and power firms.

In order to meet the governments order of supplying natural gas to priority sectors like fertiliser and power, from its eastern offshore KG-D6 fields, reports state that Reliance Industries may stop the supply of stop natural gas supplies to steel plants, petrochemical units and refineries.

The production from the KG-D6 fields has dropped by over 20%, reports mentioned adding that RIL has since July last year imposed a pro-rata cut in supplies on all its customers, including fertiliser and power firms.

A petroleum ministry order has now instructed Reliance to supply gas to priority sectors in full and if there is any gas left over it should be given to other sectors on pro-rata basis, a financial daily reported.

Sensex at 8.7K: Thirty stocks that bore the brunt

Reliance Infrastructure










Jaiprakash Associates

RIL stock skids 66% in the downturn

CHENNAI: From August '07 to January '08 when stocks rallied from strength to strength, Reliance Industries was the catalyst for the the 7,000-point sensex rally. But, ever since the fall started since January 10, it is again Reliance, according to data, may be the chief reason for bringing the benchmark down in the quicker and sharper downturn.
The world may have changed for Indian stocks and Sensex may have come down substantially but the the most influential stock in the 30-share bellwether index -Reliance still remains the match-maker. While the stock price has corrected by Rs 2,000 a share, Sensex came down by 12,500 points.

Extrapolating this, it is fair to say that for every one rupee shed by Reliance stock, Sensex has fallen by close to 6 points, according to analysts. When sensex went up by 49% in just 7 months (August to January) Reliance, which carried a weightage of 15.3% in early January, witnessed its stock price outperform the benchmark index and raised by 73%.

While the DLF stock went up by over 90% in the same period, the real estate company carried a meagre sensex weightage of 2%.

The impact of Reliance's rise is significant on Sensex as blue-chip firms SBI, ITC, ADAG-controlled Reliance Comm and ONGC cumulatively held a weightage of close to Reliance"s 15% in January. "The Reliance stock is pivotal to sensex's fortunes. There has hardly been any day, when Reliance has fallen and has not pulled down sensex alongwith it. Nobody remains unaffected when the big boy falls," said a large broker at Bombay Stock Exchange.

During the downturn, the Reliance stock has fallen by 66%, again outperforming Sensex which has shed 59% in the same period.

Although Sensex constituents such as RCom, Larsen & Toubro and DLF have fallen by 75-80% in the same period, which is sharper than Reliance, the three stocks have a cumulative weightage of just under 10% (which is less than Reliance's 12% influence), data shows.

One half of all Sensex companies taken together i.e around 15 stocks have just the same influence that a single scrip has: Reliance. DLF may have corrected by over 80% but Reliance's freefloat market cap is 14 times more than it. "Sensex is calculated under free-float market capitalisation method.

This means that the influence of closely-held companies such as DLF on the index is preventing even if their stock price fall is much sharper," the research head of a foreign brokerage explained.