Starting from July 2002 when Mukesh Ambani took over his father’s (Dhirubhai Ambani) company, he has contributed massively in this company‘s growth by leaps and bounds. Dhirubhai Ambani’s story is often considered as a quintessential example to explicate the “Rags to Riches” story in our country. It has been a decade now and RIL (Reliance Industries Limited), led by Mukesh Ambani is the largest private sector enterprise in the country.
All these ten years have been action-packed for the Chairman and Managing Director of RIL filled with challenges. It was in July 2002 that Mukesh Ambani took over as the Chairman of the conglomerate, RIL. Starting with the gas discovery at Krishna Godavari D6 basin in 2002 that led to much hullabaloo, he has not looked back. The market capital of this conglomerate then was Rs. 27,454 crores. He began his voyage with sheer determination to attain an output of 80MMSCD from his exploration business. He was successful in increasing the market capital to 31,010 crore within 2 months, i.e. during October 2002.
July 2005 witnessed the demerger of Reliance Infocomm, Reliance Capital and Reliance Energy from the flagship company with respect to the settlement process between the two brothers. Unaffected by this demerger, RIL bolstered growth and had a MCap of Rs. 82,828Cr. He ventured into the retail business with the launch of RRL (Reliance Retail Limited) which has been faring well after overcoming the stumbling blocks staggeringly. The retail subsidiary of RIL has been performing satisfactorily with it acquiring a minimum of 5000 crore, at present. It went on an expansion spree and the market capitalization of the company swelled to 1,76,847 crore by November 2006.
With the aim of tasting global success, RIL bought three shale gas assets in US on September 4, 2007. The market capitalization during this period accounted to be 2,94,710 crore irrespective of the uproar caused due to the contention with respect to the violation of insider trading norms with SEBI.
The year of 2008 was a landmark year for this corporate behemoth as it built the world’s largest refinery in Jamnagar to process 27mpta that may foster its export revenue. The market capital, however fell to 1, 94,493 during December 2008.
In the year of 2011, BP acquired 30% stake in RIL’s 21 Oil and Gas producing companies. The market capitalization accounted to be Rs2, 26,894 and RIL intended to invest in the sectors of refining and petroleum. It sets up a new investment plan in the year of 2012. However, the falling outputs during this period paved way to scrutinizing its production-sharing contract. The market capitalization during June 2012 accounted to be 228,894.
Mukesh Ambani has also already sowed seeds to bounce back with it & has set the ball rolling to launch the 4G network.
The tutelage of his father and his panache to egg on innovativeness has been a key reason for this successful voyage.