Reeba Zachariah & Sidhartha | TNN
Mumbai / New Delhi: Anant Ambani, the youngest son of Reliance Industries (RIL) President Mukesh Ambani, has been appointed a director of Reliance New Energy Solar and Reliance New Solar Energy, expanding his role in the family business. The two entities were formed just over a fortnight before RIL unveiled its green energy plans at its annual shareholders meeting on June 24.
In February this year, Anant, 26, was appointed a director of Reliance O2C, where Saudi Aramco is expected to be an investor, and a year earlier he had been appointed to the board of Jio Platforms, where his siblings Isha and Akash are also members. RIL did not respond to a TOI questionnaire.
While 64-year-old Mukesh Ambani has yet to explain succession planning at RIL, questions such as “who’s next? Have started to appear in the investment community. In Ambani’s case, after the death of his father, RIL founder Dhirubhai Ambani, in 2002, there was a succession dispute between him and his brother Anil.
Dhirubhai did not leave a will and the family business had to be split up, with Mukesh getting RIL (petroleum refining and petrochemicals) and Anil getting the energy, finance and telecommunications units as part of the settlement.
In addition to Jio Platforms, the 29-year-old twins Isha and Akash sit on the board of directors of Reliance Retail Ventures. Jio Platforms and Reliance Retail Ventures had attracted billions of dollars in investment and integrated global names such as Google, Facebook, Silver Lake and the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund to help them expand their digital and commerce footprint electronic.
With the latest appointments to the board of Anant, the three children are now represented in key RIL companies. After the recent separation of the refining and petrochemicals unit of Reliance O2C, RIL looks like Tata Sons, the holding company of the various activities of the Tata group. RIL is also paving the way for the initial public offerings of Jio Platforms and Reliance Retail Ventures, which are expected to take place in the near future.
Besides Reliance New Energy Solar and Reliance New Solar Energy, RIL has incorporated five other entities since June: Reliance New Energy Storage, Reliance Solar Projects, Reliance Storage, Reliance New Energy Carbon Fiber and Reliance New Energy Hydrogen Electrolysis. Their names indicate that the entities were created for the clean energy play.
The seven companies each have three directors. A director common to all these entities is Shanker Natarajan.
At the annual meeting of shareholders last month, Ambani said RIL would invest Rs 75,000 crore in clean energy over three years, but details on how he intends to run the green game have not been released. disclosed. RIL’s decision on renewable energy comes more than a decade after Mukesh and Anil rescinded all non-compete trade agreements between them.