Reliance AGM: Saudi Aramco deal, JioFiber launch and other key takeaways

At the 42nd AGM of Reliance Industries, Chairman Mukesh Ambani talked at length about the achievements of the conglomerate and its future course of action. Saudi Aramco and BP investing in the company, Jio expanding its scope, and the group moving towards a zero net debt future were some of the highlights of Ambani's AGM speech on Monday.

Below are the key takeaways from the Chairman's address at 42nd Reliance Industries' AGM:

1. Reliance Industries will enter into a joint venture with British oil and gas company, BP in the petroleum retailing business. Under this deal, BP will acquire 49 per cent stake in RIL's petro-retail business. Reliance Industries will receive Rs 7,000 crore from BP for this transaction.

2. Saudi Arabian national petroleum and natural gas company, Saudi Aramco has agreed to buy 20 per cent stake in the Oil to Chemicals division of Reliance Industries at an enterprise value of $75 billion. This investment by Saudi Aramco is subject to due diligence, definitive agreements, regulatory and other customary approvals.

This partnership between Saudi Aramco and Reliance Industries will cover all of latter's refining and petrochemicals assets, including 51 per cent of the petroleum retail JV with BP.

ALSO READ: Reliance to sell 20% stake in oil-to-chemicals business to Saudi Aramco : Mukesh Ambani

Saudi Aramco will also supply 500 KBPD (thousand barrels per day) of crude oil on a long-term basis to RIL's Jamnagar refinery.

3. Reliance Retail crossed the Rs 1.30-lakh-crore turnover milestone during last year. RIL's retail business registered a 7-fold increase in revenue and a 14-fold increase in profit in the past six years.

4. In its third year, Reliance Jio will expand to four new verticals after a successful run in the mobile broadband segment. These new verticals would be Internet of Things or IoT, home broadband, enterprise broadband, and broadband for small and medium businesses, through the JioFiber service. The revenues from each of these verticals are expected to kick-in within the ongoing financial year.

5. Jio's much awaited fixed-line broadband service, JioFiber will be commercially rolled out of September 5, 2019. The tariffs for the service have been kept in a range of Rs 700 to Rs 10,000. With JioFiber, the company plans to reach 20 million residences and 15 million business establishments across 1,600 towns in the country.

6. Reliance Industries will also be foraying into blockchain technology in coming days. Over the next 12 months, Jio will install a pan-India blockchain network with tens of thousands of nodes operational from the first day.

ALSO READ: Reliance AGM: Jio GigaFiber services to be launched on September 5; prices to start from Rs 700 per month

7. Jio also announced a long-term alliance with Microsoft to develop cloud data centres across India. Based on Microsoft's cloud platform Azure, these data centres will help Indian enterprises in digital transformation. Jio and Microsoft will jointly offer Office 365 so more organizations can empower their employees with a modern workplace. And Jio and Microsoft will bring Azure Cognitive Services to more devices, creating new, breakthrough intelligent experiences, with support for 13 Indian languages and others to come.

8. Under its New Commerce initiative, Reliance Industries plans to equip merchants and kirana stores with end-to-end digital and physical distribution stack. Blockchain, IoT, AI and other new technologies will be deployed across India to this end.

9. Oil to Chemcials division, Retail and Jio remained the three major growth engines for Reliance Industries during the past year. The two consumer businesses of RIL collectively contribute nearly 32 per cent to the consolidated EBITDA, up from 2 per cent five years ago. In his address, Mukesh Ambani hoped that the two arms will form half the consolidated EBITDA of the conglomerate.

10. Reliance Industries is planning to become a zero net debt company within the next 18 months, by March 31, 2021. "As we achieve our zero net-debt target, I assure you my dear shareholders that we will reward you abundantly through higher dividends, periodic bonus issues and other means, and at a more accelerated pace than any time in our history," Mukesh Ambani said in his AGM address.

ALSO READ: How Mukesh Ambani plans to turn Reliance into zero net debt company