New Gen Reliance

As Mukesh Ambani’s children play a greater role in Reliance Industries, the group is adding muscle to its digital, retail and petrochemicals businesses

- NEVIN JOHN

If you thought Mukesh Ambani and Mark Zuckerberg sat across a table, assisted by a battery of experts, to frame the Facebook-Jio deal, you are mistaken. Ambani's twin children Isha and Akash led talks for sale of a stake in Jio Platforms (JPL), flying down multiple times to Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, California, for negotiations. The senior Ambani was given the minutes of the negotiations by the children. The details were shared often at dinner time in Antilla.

The stake sale is a step towards transforming the business empire founded by late Dhirubhai Ambani as a yarn trading company in Mumbai’s Masjid Bunder about 63 years ago. One aim is to rid Reliance Industries (RIL) of a bulk of the massive ₹3.36 lakh crore gross debt ac-cumulated to fund growth businesses — Reliance Jio, Reliance Retail and petrochemicals. The other is to prepare the group for a digital/consumer future. For years, petrochemicals and refining stood taller than others. That is changing. In fact, Ambani doesn’t even call RIL an oil and gas conglomerate any more. Instead, it’s being positioned as a technology company so that the larger objectives are clear: build three businesses — refining & petrochemicals, digital & telecom and retail — of global scale; cut off financial inter-dependence of these businesses; create debt-free balance sheets.

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