Reliance Industries

1960–1980

The company was co-founded by Dhirubhai Ambani and his brother Champaklal Damani in 1960s as Reliance Commercial Corporation. In 1965, the partnership ended and Dhirubhai continued the polyester business of the firm. In 1966, Reliance Textiles Industries Pvt Ltd was incorporated in Maharashtra. It established a synthetic fabrics mill in the same year at Naroda in Gujarat. In 1975, the company expanded its business into textiles, with "Vimal" becoming its major brand in later years. The company held its Initial public offering (IPO) in 1977. The issue was over-subscribed by seven times. In 1979, a textiles company Sidhpur Mills was amalgamated with the company. In 1980, the company expanded its polyester yarn business by setting up a Polyester Filament Yarn Plant in Raigad, Maharashtra with financial and technical collaboration with E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., U.S.

1981–2000

In 1985, the name of the company was changed from Reliance Textiles Industries Ltd. to Reliance Industries Ltd. During the years 1985 to 1992, the company expanded its installed capacity for producing polyester yarn by over 145,000 tonnes per annum.

The Hazira petrochemical plant was commissioned in 1991–92.

In 1993, Reliance turned to the overseas capital markets for funds through a global depositary issue of Reliance Petroleum. In 1996, it became the first private sector company in India to be rated by international credit rating agencies. S&P rated Reliance "BB+, stable outlook, constrained by the sovereign ceiling". Moody's rated "Baa3, Investment grade, constrained by the sovereign ceiling".

In 1995/96, the company entered the telecom industry through a joint venture with NYNEX, USA and promoted Reliance Telecom Private Limited in India.

In 1998/99, RIL introduced packaged LPG in 15 kg cylinders under the brand name Reliance Gas.

The years 1998–2000 saw the construction of the integrated petrochemical complex at Jamnagar in Gujarat, the largest refinery in the world.

2001–

In 2001, Reliance Industries Ltd. and Reliance Petroleum Ltd. became India's two largest companies in terms of all major financial parameters. In 2001–02, Reliance Petroleum was merged with Reliance Industries. In 2002, Reliance announced India's biggest gas discovery (at the Krishna Godavari basin) in nearly three decades and one of the largest gas discoveries in the world during 2002. The in-place volume of natural gas was in excess of 7 trillion cubic feet, equivalent to about 1.2 billion barrels of crude oil. This was the first ever discovery by an Indian private sector company. In 2002–03, RIL purchased a majority stake in Indian Petrochemicals Corporation Ltd. (IPCL), India's second largest petrochemicals company, from Government of India. IPCL was later merged with RIL in 2008. In the years 2005 and 2006, the company reorganized its business by demerging its investments in power generation and distribution, financial services and telecommunication services into four separate entities. In 2006, Reliance entered the organised retail market in India with the launch of its retail store format under the brand name of 'Reliance Fresh'. By the end of 2008, Reliance retail had close to 600 stores across 57 cities in India. In November 2009, Reliance Industries issued 1:1 bonus shares to its shareholders. In 2010, Reliance entered Broadband services market with acquisition of Infotel Broadband Services Limited, which was the only successful bidder for pan-India fourth-generation (4G) spectrum auction held by Government of India. In the same year, Reliance and BP announced a partnership in the oil and gas business. BP took a 30 per cent stake in 23 oil and gas production sharing contracts that Reliance operates in India, including the KG-D6 block for $7.2 billion. Reliance also formed a 50:50 joint venture with BP for sourcing and marketing of gas in India. In 2012, RIL set up a joint venture with Russian Company Sibur for setting up a Butyl rubber plant in Jamnagar, Gujarat. The plant was scheduled to be operational in 2015 Presently, Tejpal Singh Bisht is the President and CEO of New Ventures in the Chairman's Office at Reliance Industries Limited.

Shareholding

The number of shareholders in RIL are approx. 3 million.The promoter group, Ambani family, holds approx. 52% of the total shares whereas the remaining 48% shares are held by public shareholders, including FII and corporate bodies. Life Insurance Corporation of India is the largest non-promoter investor in the company with 7.98% shareholding.
Buyback: In January 2012, the company announced a buyback programme to buy a maximum of 120 million shares for ₹104 billion (US$1.5 billion). By the end of January 2013, the company bought back 46.2 million shares for ₹33.66 billion (US$500 million).

Listing

The company's equity shares are listed on the National Stock Exchange of India Limited (NSE) and the BSE Limited. The Global Depository Receipts (GDRs) issued by the Company are listed on Luxembourg Stock Exchange. It has issued approx. 56 million GDRs wherein each GDR is equivalent to 2 equity shares of the company. Approx. 3.46% of its total shares are listed on Luxembourg Stock Exchange.
Its debt securities are listed at the Wholesale Debt Market (WDM) Segment of the National Stock Exchange of India Limited (NSE).
Credit Ratings: It has received domestic credit ratings of AAA from CRISIL (S&P subsidiary) and Fitch. Moody's and S&P have provided investment grade ratings for international debt of the Company, as Baa2 positive outlook (local currency issuer rating) and BBB+ outlook respectively.

Operations

The company's petrochemicals, refining, and oil and gas-related operations form the core of its business; other divisions of the company include cloth, retail business, telecommunications and special economic zone (SEZ) development. In 2012–13, it earned 76% of its revenue from Refining, 19% from Petrochemicals, 2% from Oil & Gas and 3% from Other segments.

In July 2012, RIL informed that it was going to invest US$1 billion over the next few years in its new aerospace division which will design, develop, manufacture, equipment and components, including airframe, engine, radars, avionics and accessories for military and civilian aircraft, helicopters, unmanned airborne vehicles and aerostats.

Major subsidiaries and associates

On 31 March 2013, the company had 123 subsidiary companies and 10 associate companies.

Employees

As on 31 March 2013, the company had 23,519 employees of which 1,159 were women and 83 were employees with disabilities. It also had 29,462 temporary employees on the same date. As per its Sustainability Report for 2011–12, the attrition rate was 7.5%. But currently, the same attrition rate has gone up to 23.4% in 2015 as per latest report released within the organisation.
In its 39th Annual General Meeting, its Chairman informed the shareholders of the investment plans of the company of about ₹1,500 billion (US$22 billion) in next three years. This would be accompanied by increasing the staff strength in Retail division from existing strength of 35,000 to 120,000 in next 3 years and increasing employees in Telecom division from existing 3,000 to 10,000 in 12 months.

Awards and recognition

De-merger of RIL in 2005–2006

The Ambani family holds around 45% of the shares in RIL. Since its inception, the company was managed by its founder and chairman Dhirubhai Ambani. After suffering a heart attack in 1986, he handed over the daily operations of the company to his sons Mukesh Ambani and Anil Ambani. After the death of Dhirubhai Ambani in 2002, the management of the company was taken up by both the brothers. In November 2004, Mukesh Ambani, in an interview, admitted to having differences with his brother Anil over 'ownership issues'. He also said that the differences "are in the private domain". The share prices of RIL were impacted by some margin when this news broke out. In 2005, after a bitter public feud between the brothers over the control of the Reliance empire, mother Kokilaben intervened to broker a deal splitting the RIL group business into the two parts. In October 2005, the split of Reliance Group was formalized. Mukesh Ambani got Reliance Industries and IPCL. Younger brother Anil Ambani received telecom, power, entertainment and financial services business of the group. The Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group includes Reliance Communications, Reliance Infrastructure, Reliance Capital, Reliance Natural Resources and Reliance Power.
The division of Reliance group business between the two brothers also resulted in de-merger of 4 businesses from RIL. These businesses immediately became part of Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group. The existing shareholders in RIL, both the promoter group and non-promoters, received shares in the de-merged companies.

Relationship with ONGC

In May 2014, ONGC moved to Delhi High Court accusing RIL of pilferage of 18 billion cubic metres of gas from its gas-producing block in the Krishna Godavari basin. Subsequently, the two companies agreed to form an independent expert panel to probe any pilferage.