INDIA: Billionaire Mukesh Ambani Raises Stake in Reliance

by Manash Goswami
Reliance Industries Ltd., India's most valuable company, plans to let its billionaire Chairman Mukesh Ambani and principal owners raise their stake in the company with an issue of preferential warrants.

The issue of 120 million warrants, convertible into an equal number of shares, was approved by the Mumbai-based company's board today, according to an e-mailed statement. The so-called promoters of the company now own 50.62 percent, according to the Bombay Stock Exchange Web site.

Ambani, 49, in the past year announced Reliance Industries' plans to invest more than $10 billion to develop oil and gas fields off eastern India and build a nationwide chain of retail stores. Group company Reliance Petroleum is spending another $6 billion to build a new refinery.

``Reliance has huge investment plans and may raise funds by selling shares in the company,'' said R.K. Gupta, who manages $70 million of assets at Credit Capital Asset Management in New Delhi. ``Mukesh Ambani probably wants to ensure his holding in the company doesn't fall below 50 percent after any such sale.''

Credit Capital owns 30,000 shares in Reliance Industries.
Reliance Retail Ltd. is spending $5 billion to set up stores and is hoping a rapid rollout will help it gain an edge over local rivals such as Pantaloon Retail India Ltd. and overseas retailers Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Carrefour SA, when India permits them to open store chains.

Reliance hopes to tap the organized, or store-chain, retail market that Morgan Stanley estimates will surge 15-fold to $60 billion by 2015.

Reliance Retail opened nine stores in the suburbs of New Delhi on Jan. 29, expanding its presence in the world's second- most populous country. Reliance Retail already has stores in the southern cities of Hyderabad and Chennai and in Jaipur in the western state of Rajasthan, covering 109,000 square feet.

Reliance Retail is targeting sales of 1 trillion rupees ($22.6 billion) by 2011 through a nationwide chain that will sell goods ranging from groceries to electronics. The company plans to have 100 million square feet of retail space by 2011, the company said on Nov. 3.

The company plans to invest $5.2 billion in developing a field in Krishna Godavari basin off India's east coast that will produce 80 million cubic meters a day of gas, doubling India's current output.

Reliance Board Approves Building $3 Billion Chemical Plant
by Manash Goswami

Reliance Industries Ltd., India's biggest company, plans to spend $3 billion building a chemical plant in western India.

The plant, with a capacity of 2 million metric tons a year, will use fuels from the company's 660,000 barrels a day refinery at Jamnagar to make ethylene and propylene, the Mumbai-based company said in an e-mailed statement. The plan was approved by its board at a meeting today. The plant will be ready by 2011, the statement said.

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