Successful journey. RIL under Mukesh Ambani, 20 years of strong growth

Mukesh Ambani, 65, has completed 20 years at the helm of Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), one of largest employers and most profitable companies of India.

Mukesh Ambani took over as the Chairman and Managing Director of Reliance Industries after the demise of his father and Reliance founder Dhirubhai Ambani on July 6, 2002.

During Mukesh Amabni’s over 20 years of stewardship, RIL has achieved a consistent strong double-digit growth across all financial parameters. The company has also become known for rewarding investors with consistent dividends.

Reliance’s market capitalisation has grown at an annualised rate of 21 per cent in the last 20 years to ₹17,81,841 crore as of March, 20222 from ₹41,989 crore in March, 2002 Its revenues grew at 15 per cent to ₹792,756 crore during the said period.

Reliance’s net profit had increased at an annualised rate of 16 per cent to ₹67,845 crore against ₹3,280 crore two decades ago.

Exports grew at an annualised rate of 17 per cent to ₹254,970 crore (₹11,200 crore).

Reliance added ₹17.4 lakh crore to investor wealth during these two decades, which is an average ₹87,000 crore every year.

Interestingly, Ambani had capped his annual salary at ₹15 crore in the last 11 years to set a personal example of moderation in managerial compensation levels.

He has kept his salary, perquisites, allowances and commission together at ₹15 crore since 2008-09, forgoing over ₹24 crore per annum.

The company has ventured into a series of new businesses in these two decades and most impactful have been Reliance Retail in 2006 and Reliance Jio in 2016.

After the launch of Jio, India became the data capital of the world and the cost of data per GB fell from ₹500 to ₹12.

The company’s exploration and production business made the first hydrocarbon discovery in late 2002 and production started in 2009.

It had set up the second export oriented refinery in 2009 and nearly doubled its refining capacity with unique capability to convert the worst of crudes into the best of exportable fuels.

Spearheaded by Mukesh Ambani’s wife Nita Ambani, Reliance Foundation serves over 6.3 crore people in India.

The company has set aside ₹75,000 crore for new energy business to set up five integrated giga factories in Jamnagar in three years. This will have first-of-its-kind ‘quartz-to-module’ solar panel facility. The company’s ultimate aim is to emerge world’s lowest cost producer of solar energy and green hydrogen.

Reliance will start 10GW of solar PV cell and module factory by 2024, which will be scaled up to 20GW by 2026.

Amid the Covid lockdowns, the company raised over ₹2.5 lakh crore through rights issue, and minority stake sale in Jio Platform and Reliance Retail Ventures.

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