Reliance on NextGen: Isha, Akash, and Anant Ambani to be on board

Oil-to-telecom conglomerate Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) on Monday announced the induction of the third generation of the Ambani family as directors on the company’s board, viewed as the start of a succession.

Speaking at the company’s annual shareholders’ meeting, Mukesh Ambani told shareholders he would remain chairman and managing director (CMD) for five more years, and mentor the three to-be-appointed directors of the board.

Regarding its board, RIL announced two key developments: First, Isha, Akash and Anant Ambani’s appointments were approved by the board of directors in a meeting earlier in the day (this will be effective following the approval from the shareholders). Second, Nita Ambani stepped down as director from the board, but would remain chairperson of Reliance Foundation.

Reliance Foundation is the corporate social responsibility (CSR) arm for the company.

In his address, Mukesh Ambani laid out the roadmap for the next phase of growth at his over $200 billion conglomerate with newly listed Jio Financial Services planning to offer insurance products, telecom arm Jio providing wireless broadband services to homes, Jio AirFiber, from Ganesh Chaturthi (September 19), and marquee investors queuing up for a pie of the retail unit.

Terming artificial intelligence (AI) as the most exciting frontier of growth for Jio, Ambani pledged the company's commitment to create up to 2,000 Mw of AI-ready computing capacity. He promised: “AI to everyone, everywhere.”

He reiterated capital commitments to various business segments, including Rs 75,000 crore to build the New Energy manufacturing ecosystem.

He said the company was focussed on fast-tracking the execution of the Dhirubhai Ambani Green Energy Giga Manufacturing Complex in Jamnagar. “Our first priority is to deliver a fully-integrated, end-to-end Solar PV manufacturing ecosystem,” Ambani said, adding that the company now has a roadmap for achieving its targeted cost of electrolysers, and in turn, green hydrogen.

Addressing the 46th RIL AGM, Ambani, said his three children will work as one single team and will collaborate with other directors “to provide leadership to the Reliance group as a whole and guide the growth of all our diverse businesses.”

Isha at present is a board member for RIL subsidiaries -- Retail Venture and Reliance Jio. Akash has been on the board of Reliance Jio Infocomm as chairman since June 2022. Anant Ambani is a director on the boards of Jio Platforms, Reliance Retail Ventures, Reliance New Energy, and Reliance New Solar Energy.

“This is truly an emotional moment for me because it reminds me of that day in 1977, when my father inducted me into the board of directors of Reliance. I was only 20 then,” reminisced senior Ambani.

He listed mentoring Isha, Akash, and Anant as one of his three key priorities as CMD for the next five years, “so that they can provide collective leadership and dependably take Reliance to greater heights of growth and value in the decades ahead.”

Himanshu Rai, director with India Institute of Management, Indore (IIMI), viewed this development as a positive signal to all stakeholders. “It will also prevent any dispute in the future,” he said. Close to two decades ago, succession issues after the death of Dhirubhai Ambani, founder chairman of RIL, led to a bitter battle between brothers Mukesh and Anil Ambani. The succession battle later led to the creation of two separate conglomerates – Reliance Group (earlier Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group) and Reliance Industries.

Rai further said the next five years would give ample time to the third Ambani generation, “To learn the ropes and the subtler nuances of the various businesses,” he said.

The street, however, did not react positively to the announcements made at the AGM. RIL’s share price at the BSE closed 1.11 per cent lower at Rs 2,442.55 on Monday.

Ambani started his address at 2 pm and ended his note around closing of market hours. "The absence of any announcement regarding the IPOs of Reliance Retail and telecom dragged the RIL stock down. But, indications about the green energy business are positive. Volatility in the stock price on the AGM day is normal for RIL," said K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services.

A lot of shareholder queries related to how RIL plans to cope with the changes in the energy business due to climate change and the timeline for listing the retail and consumer business. In his concluding remarks, in reply to these queries, Ambani assured shareholders RIL’s profitability amid the change in energy trends. The billionaire, however, did not divulge any further details on a listing for the consumer businesses.

For the oil-to-chemicals (O2C) business segment, Ambani reiterated the focus on transforming it into an integrated chemicals and materials business.

Ambani set 2026 as the new timeline for the battery giga factory, which is part of the new energy business. Ambani said the company will reach the industrialising sodium-ion cell production at megawatt level by 2025, and rapidly scale up to giga scale thereafter. The earlier timeline for the scale-up to a fully integrated 5 GWh annual cell-to-pack manufacturing facility was 2024.

Reliance Retail, on the other hand, is scaling up its cola brand, Campa Cola, and is taking it global, starting with Asia and Africa. “We have invested over $10 billion in the past two years, focusing on building integration, growing in-house brands, and improving supply chain networks,” said Isha, commenting on the retail business.

Mukesh Ambani also said that several marquee global strategic and financial investors have shown strong interest in Reliance Retail.