Reliance Industries (RIL) Becomes Debt-Free Company Announces Mukesh Ambani

On June 18, Saudi Arabia’s PIF, one of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds, said it would invest Rs 11,367 crore for 2.32 percent of Jio Platforms running movies, news, and music apps as well as Jio Infocomm’s telecommunications sector. In addition to Facebook and PIF, General Atlantic, Silver Lake (twice), Vista Equity Partners, KKR, Mubadala Investment Firm, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, TPG, and L Catterton have associated themselves to invest in Jio.

RIL said the investment from PIF marks the end of the current process of financial partners’ induction at Jio Platforms.

The issue of RIL rights, which was subscribed to 1.59 times, was not only India’s largest issue ever but also a non-financial entity’s largest in the world in the last ten years. Along with the petro-retail JV stake sale to BP, the total fundraise exceeds Rs 1.75 lakh crore, RIL added.

At Reliance Industries’ 42nd AGM on August 12, 2019, Chairman Mukesh Ambani had assured shareholders of his roadmap for Reliance becoming a net-debt-free company before March 31, 2021, adding that both Jio and Reliance Retail will be listed within the next 5 years.

“We fulfilled our promise to the shareholders by making Reliance net debt-free much earlier than our original March 31, 2021 schedule,” Ambani said in a release.

Shri Mukesh Ambani said further: “We have been overwhelmed over the last few weeks by the
Global financial investor community phenomenal interest in partnering with Jio. As our financial investor fundraising milestone is reached, we sincerely thank the brand group of Financial partners, and welcome them warmly to Jio Platforms. I also wish to express my sincere gratitude to all retail and institutional investors, domestic as well as international, for their enormous participation in our problem of record-setting status.

RIL is India’s largest private sector company, with INR 659,205 crore consolidated turnover ($87.1 billion), INR 71.446 crore ($9.4 billion) cash income, and INR 39.880 crore ($5.3 billion) net profit Mrd.) for the year ended 31 March 2020.

RIL ‘s activities cover the exploration and manufacture of hydrocarbons, oil refining and marketing, Petrochemicals, Internet infrastructure, and distribution. RIL is India’s top-rated enterprise. Currently listed 106th in Fortune ‘s Global 500 list of ‘World’s Biggest Companies’ terms of both profit and revenue. The company is 71st in the rankings of ‘Forbes Global 2000’ for 2019 – top-notch among Indian firms.

Jio ‘s list of investors includes Facebook; six private equity companies, namely General Atlantic, TPG, KKR, Silver  Lake, L Catterton, Vista Equity Partners, two Abu Dhabi sovereign funds — Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and Mubadala Investment Company — and the Public Investment Fund (PIF) of Saudi Arabia. RIL had set a deadline of March 2021 to become debt-free.