RIL AGM to be held next week: Date, time, what to expect

RIL’s AGM tends to be announcement-heavy and expectations run high in the run-up to the AGM and this year (like the last 3) centers on more clarity on the concrete timelines being announced for separate IPOs of the retail and telecom businesses, its 5G rollout plans, the conglomerate Chairman Mukesh Ambani’s succession plans, among others. 

In the early stage of his succession planning in June this year, the Indian billionaire resigned as director of Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd and made way for his son Akash Ambani to become the chairman of the telecom company.

Meanwhile, earlier this month, Reliance Jio emerged as the top spender in India’s 5G spectrum auction received a record ₹1.5 lakh crore of bids. Reliance Industries’ (RIL) telecom arm cornered nearly half of all the airwaves sold with a ₹88,078 crore bid.

Mukesh Ambani chairs and runs Reliance Industries, which has interests in petrochemicals, oil and gas, telecom and retail. Almost 60% of Reliance’s revenue comes from oil-refining and petrochemicals, though, the conglomerate has been reducing its dependence on oil-refining by diversifying into retail, telecommunications and technology.

In Q1 FY23, RIL posted a consolidated net profit of ₹17,955 crore rising by 46.3% from the year ago quarter, on the back of robust refining margins due to intake of cheaper Russian crude and fuel exports buoyed its dominant oil-to-chemicals business.

Ambani is pivoting Reliance into green energy. The company will be investing $80 billion over the next 10-15 years on renewable energy and building a new complex next to its refinery. The conglomerate has committed to a Net Carbon Zero emission goal by 2035 and its New Energy proposition is key to achieving this.

In RIL’s annual report for 2021-22, Chairman and Managing Director Ambani said that “over the next 12 months our investments across the Green Energy value chain will gradually start going live, scaling up over the next couple of years. This new growth engine holds great promise to outshine all our existing growth engines in just 5-7 years.” 

First article