Mukesh Ambani-led RIL m-cap hits $100 billion, once again; shares surge 5% to all-time high

RIL hits $100 billion again: Billionaire Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries hit $100 billion mark in market capitalization, even as the shares surged to all-time high levels on Thursday. Reliance Industries shares zoomed to an intra-day high of Rs 1,091.5, up by nearly 5%, intra-day taking its market capitalization to 6.87 lakh crore, or $100 billion, converted at the current USD/INR rate of 67.82.

Earlier, the oil and gas-to-telecom behemoth had first crossed the $100-billion market-cap mark in October 2007. However, back then the rupee was at 39.5 to a dollar. In May this year, India’s largest IT services company by turnover and market capitalisation TCS(Tata Consultancy Services) clinched $100 billion in the market capitalisation, on the back of stellar results.

The rally in the shares comes on the back of a surge in the stocks of oil marketing companies, buoyed by a slump in global crude oil prices. Reliance Industries, with its market capitalisation at Rs 6.86 lakh crore is now India’s second most valued firm, after TCS (Tata Consultancy Services). RIL shares have risen by nearly 20% since January-18. “It is a matter of great pride for me that, since Reliance’s IPO in 1977, our shareholders’ money has doubled every two and a half years, for the last 40 years,” Mukesh Ambani noted recently.

The calendar year 2017 had been a stellar year for the firm, as the firm crossed the 6 lakh crore market capitalisation. In the last year alone RIL has added more than Rs 2 lakh crore to its market capitalisation. It was just on on February 27th this year, RIL crossed the 4 lakh crore market capitalisation, and very soon rose to Rs 5 lakh crore, to trump TCS to become India’s most valued company in July-17 this year.

“My father founded Reliance in 1966 with one just employee and with a meagre capital of only Rs 1000, or about USD 130 at that time. Even then, his dream was to build Reliance as a world-class and world-scale Indian business conglomerate. He realised his dream in his own lifetime,” Mukesh Ambani said at Financial Times ArcelorMittal Boldness in Business Awards in March this year.

At Reliance Industries’ 41st AGM held last week, Chairman Mukesh Ambani unveiled his mega plan for the ‘golden decade,’ and said that the size of his company will more than double by 2025. In a slew of announcements, Ambani unveiled his big Jio plan, with the launch of JioPhone2, JioGigaFiber and JioGigaTV. Mukesh Ambani also pointed to the unparalleled rise of his telecom upstart Reliance Jio.

“Since I last spoke, we have doubled our customer base to over 215 million now. 215 million customers within 22 months of start is a record that no technology company has been able to achieve anywhere in the world,” Mukesh Ambani noted, adding that the data usage has grown from 125 crore GBs per month to more than 240 crore GBs per month.