Ambani moves ahead with succession plan at Reliance

Asia’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani, said his three children will be inducted into the board of Reliance Industries Ltd as non-executive directors, while he will continue as chairman and managing director at the company for five more years.

At the company’s annual general meeting on Monday, Ambani said he has assigned himself three key responsibilities, including grooming next-gen leaders at Reliance, especially his children Akash, Isha, and Anant.

“I shall especially mentor Akash, Isha and Anant so that they can provide collective leadership and dependably take Reliance to greater heights of growth and value in the decades ahead,” Ambani said at the company’s annual general meeting.

Ambani’s statement comes a year after he had charted succession planning at the conglomerate.

“Over the past few years, Isha, Akash and Anant, as first among equals of our next-generation leaders, have fully immersed themselves in every aspect of Reliance. They have been working with our senior leaders in some of the most exciting projects in consumer businesses, digital enterprises, O2C, and green energy and green materials,” Ambani said.

“I am happy to report to you that earlier today, the Board met and recommended the induction of Isha Ambani, Akash Ambani and Anant Ambani into the Board of Directors. I can proudly say that they have earned their stripes through dedication, commitment, and hard work,” he added.

While the Ambani scions were appointed as non-executive directors, Ambani said his wife, Nita, will exit the board to devote more time to the Reliance Foundation charity. Nita will continue to be a permanent invitee at all board meetings, the company said.

Reliance shares slipped 1.1% on BSE to ₹2,442.55 at close of trading on Monday.

In another announcement, Ambani said the company would begin rolling out its fixed-wireless broadband offering, JioAirFiber, on 19 September.

The company said JioAirFiber uses Reliance’s pan-India 5G network and advanced wireless technologies to bypass the need for last-mile fiber.

“Through optical fiber, we can currently connect around 15,000 premises daily. But with JioAirFiber, we can supercharge this expansion with up to 150,000 connections per day which is a 10-fold increase, expanding our addressable market over the next three years to over 200 million high-paying homes and premises,” the company said in the statement.

Speaking on the conglomerate’s retail business, Ambani said he see Reliance Retail becoming the fastest-growing business. “I am confident that as India grows from a $2,500 per-capita economy to a $10,000 per-capita economy, Reliance Retail will be our fastest growing business in revenues and Ebitda (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, a unit of profitability).

Earlier this month, sovereign wealth fund Qatar Investment Authority invested $1 billion in RIL’s retail business for a 1% equity stake in a deal that values the business at $100 billion.