RIL AGM 2024 key expectations: Reliance Jio, Retail listings; new energy biz update & more

Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) investors are keenly awaiting the oil-to-telecom giant’s 47th annual general meeting (AGM) scheduled for Thursday, August 29. The formalisation of succession plan by Mukesh Ambani, the announcement regarding AiFiber and suggestions of potential investors in Reliance Retail were some of the key highlights of the RIL AGM 2023 — what lacked then was the absence of timelines for initial public offers (IPOs) of telecom and retail businesses.

Jio, Retail IPOs; O2C strategic sale

“Key expectations from August 29’s AGM are around updates on timeline for listing of Retail and Digital businesses and any potential strategic stake sale in O2C business,” said JM Financial.

Jefferies in a recent note said the telecom business of Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), Reliance Jio Infocomm (Jio), could be valued at $112 billion upon its public listing. On O2C business, BoB Capital Markets noted that RIL’s annual report largely talked about external market changes, which indicates that there is no focus on large O2C investments in the near term.

“Any update on the progress of various projects underway in New Energy business with timelines around project commissioning and earning potential from such projects would be keenly followed,” JM Financial said.

New Energy updates
To recall, RIL in its 2022 AGM announced Rs 75,000 crore investments in New Energy. In its 2023 AGM, Mukesh Ambani said RIL was progressing well to deploy its committed capital to build New Energy manufacturing ecosystem.

“This will enable us to accelerate giga-scale production for round-the-clock power and for large-scale Green Hydrogen production for green chemicals manufacturing, as well as for green mobility,” he noted. Updates on New Energy biz, thus would be noteworthy.

The FY24 annual report states that the company will continue to monitor financial markets to seize suitable opportunities for capital-raising to support its growth plans, analysts noted.

“New energy will be commissioning its first train of module and cell manufacturing in FY25. Solar panels manufactured in Jamnagar have obtained BIS certification. Parallelly, work on RE development has commenced and Reliance has been allotted land in Gujarat. The company aims to become the largest RE developer in India. It has initiated participation in RE PPA with the first PPA signed with MSEDCL for 128 MW for 25 years,” ICICI Securities said in a note.

The brokerage expects multiple investments in the various areas of the new energy segment will start to play out gradually, with others segment having grown in capital employed by 3.9 times over FY19–24 to Rs 2.1 lakh crore, even as revenue and profitability from this segment remains some time away.

“Timelines for commencement of new energy products and potential listings of Jio and Reliance Retail will be key things to focus on,” Bernstein said while revising its target price on RIL to Rs 3,440, from Rs 3,190 earlier.

Meanwhile, investors would be keenly awaiting updates on 5G monetisation plans and any further update around succession plans.