Ambani, Asia’s richest person, has previously said his children Isha, Akash and Anant would have significant roles in the business and that Reliance was “in the process of effecting a momentous leadership transition”. Mukesh Ambani was re-appointed as chairman of the company for another five years in July.

Ambani, 66, said his three children will work as one single team and will collaborate with other directors “to provide leadership to the Reliance group as a whole and guide the growth of all our diverse businesses.”

With a market value of more than $200 billion, Ambani’s business empire spans telecoms, retail, oil and gas and new energy.

With Mukesh Ambani in his late 60s, “the time is probably right … If not now, when?,” said Arun Dasmahapatra, a partner at executive search firm Heidrick & Struggles’ Mumbai office.

“This is also an attempt by Mukesh Ambani to ensure the next generation of Ambani siblings stay close to one another and do not have any discord.”

Mukesh’s father Dhirubhai Ambani, a well-known industrialist, died without a will, sparking a long-running and public feud for control of assets between Mukesh and his younger brother Anil.

Ambani has positioned experienced executives and long-time friends and family to steer his children through the transition, and they have taken larger roles at annual general meetings and led some company announcements.

Reliance also said Ambani’s wife Nita had stepped down from the board to focus more on strengthening Reliance’s charity arm.

Akash Ambani, who attended Brown University, was part of a team that brokered a $5.7 billion investment in 2020 by Meta Platforms (META.O) in Jio Platforms, a Reliance unit. He is already the chairman of Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited, the telecom arm of Reliance.

Akash’s twin sister Isha is driving the expansion of Reliance Retail into new categories and geographies, and is already a director on the boards of the retail unit, Reliance Retail Ventures, which houses the conglomerate’s bets in India’s brick-and-mortar and e-commerce industries.

The youngest of the siblings, Anant, is a director at Reliance’s new energy business, retail unit as well as Jio platforms and its energy, and oil and chemical units.

The appointments are to be finalised after approval from shareholders.

Retail, Airfiber

Speaking at the annual general meeting with shareholders, Mukesh Ambani said the retail unit had doubled its valuation to $100 billion after a recent $1 billion investment from the Qatar Investment Authority in exchange for a 1% stake, adding that it was seeing interest from several top global and financial investors.

The company will launch Jio AirFiber, a wireless indoor device for offices and homes that provides broadband-like speeds, on Sept. 19. The device, which uses the Jio 5G telecom network for connectivity, will help Reliance target more than 200 million homes in the next three years.

Reliance shares closed down 1% on Monday and were among the top losers in the benchmark Nifty 50 index. Analysts attributed the decline to the absence of any new details at the shareholder meeting on the IPOs of telecom and retail arms of the company.

Reliance in 2019 had said the units will be listed publicly in five years. Investors were expecting an update on the timeline after Ambani last year said more details would be shared at this year’s meeting.

Ambani also announced plans to manufacture wind energy equipment in India under Reliance’s new energy business, and a plan to set up a battery giga factory by 2026.

Ambani’s Reliance had last month spun off JFS, with the stock price set at 261.85 rupees during a special discovery session, valuing JFS at around 1.7 trillion Indian rupees ($20.5 billion)

That price, however, was higher than the 160-190 rupees per share estimate by five analysts who spoke to Reuters before Reliance set the price. On Monday, JFS stocks fell 5% – the most it can fall in a session – shortly after it started trading, with over 73 million shares changing hands, reducing its valuation to 1.58 trillion rupees ($19 billion).

Shares of Reliance Industries were down 1.2%, while the broader Nifty 50 index (.NSEI) was slightly up 0.5%, lifted by 2.5% gains in JFS’ rival Bajaj Finance (BJFN.NS).

“What is the fair value of this company will only be clear after some time as earnings get reported and businesses get built out,” said Arun Kejriwal, founder at Kejriwal Research & Investment Services.

Investors expect Ambani to give more details about JFS during the Reliance annual general meeting on Aug. 28.

Reliance Industries had approved the listing of 6.35 billion JFS shares, but it was not immediately clear how much of a stake this represented in the company.

As part of the de-merger, shareholders of Reliance Industries received one JFS share for every Reliance share.

Even with the lower valuation, JFS is the third-largest non-banking financial company (NBFC) in India, behind Bajaj Finance (BJFN.NS) and Bajaj Finserv (BJFS.NS), which are valued at 4.15 trillion rupees and 2.32 trillion rupees respectively.

Non-Executive Chairman KV Kamath, a veteran banker and former chairman of ICICI Bank (ICBK.NS), said JFS intends to be a “full-service financial services player”.

He declined to elaborate on the company’s business plans or outlook, but JFS has already announced a joint venture with BlackRock Inc (BLK.N) to launch asset management services in India, with an initial investment of $150 million each.

“JFS will differ from most other fintechs in having access to huge amounts of data gathered from a non-financial relationship,” analysts at Macquarie Research said in a note earlier this year, referring to Reliance’s retail and telecom units.

“It can process and analyse those in real time to offer financial services like Alibaba, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google etc,” the research note added.

As part of the demerger, Reliance Industries folded into JFS the following units: Reliance Retail Finance, Reliance Payment Solutions Ltd, Jio Information Aggregator Services and Reliance Retail Insurance Broking. Jio Payments Bank will follow if the merger is approved by the central bank, the company said.

Reliance had named Hitesh Sethia as JFS’ chief executive and Ambani’s daughter Isha Ambani as a non-executive director on the company’s board.

Narendra Solanki, head of fundamental research at Anand Rathi Shares and Stock Brokers attributed JFS’s weak trading debut to the exit of index funds tracking Indian benchmark indices, which must sell their shares in JFS after its listing.

JFS is included in major global indices such as FTSE as well as India’s blue-chip Nifty 50 (.NSEI) index after its spin off because Reliance Industries is also part of these indices.

It is scheduled to be removed from some of India’s indices at the end of its third day of listing, as per exchange rules.

The Nifty 50 (.NSEI) index closed 0.75% higher at a record high of 19,711.45, while the S&P BSE Sensex (.BSESN) climbed 0.80% to 66,589.93.

Eleven of the 13 major sectoral indexes logged gains with the high-weightage financials (.NIFTYFIN) adding 1.25%. Private lender, HDFC Bank (HDBK.NS), which is the highest weighted stock in Nifty 50 following its merger with HDFC, rose over 2% after reporting a jump in June quarter profit.

Reliance Industries (RELI.NS) also advanced 2%. Analysts expect the conglomerate to gain further from the demerger of financial services unit effective July 20.

The rally extended to broader markets as well with smallcaps (.NIFSMCP100) and midcaps (.NIFMDCP100) hitting fresh 52-week and record highs, respectively.

“We remain highly optimistic about domestic equities due to robust foreign inflows and moderation in U.S. inflation,” said G Chokkalingam, managing director for research at Equinomics Research.

Foreign portfolio investors have bought Indian equities worth 306.60 billion rupees in the first half of July and are on course to extend their buying streak for a fifth straight month.

“Weakness in China’s recovery is also a factor behind rising foreign inflows into India,” said Deven Choksey, director at KRChoksey Holdings.

Asian and European equities were subdued after China’s GDP rose at a lower-than-expected rate in the June quarter.

Among individual shares, Zee Entertainment (ZEE.NS) jumped over 6% and powered a 3.15% rise in media index (.NIFTYMED) following the constitution of an interim committee to run operations after the market regulator restricted CEO Punit Goenka from holding key managerial positions in listed companies for one year.

Oil & Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC.NS) lost nearly 2% after government raised the windfall tax on petroleum crude over the weekend.

It is the last of the three major new deepwater developments the RIL-BP consortium have brought into production in block KG D6 off the east coast of India.

The start of gas and condensate production from the field follows the start of the R-Cluster field in December 2020 and Satellite Cluster in April 2021, Reliance said.

Together, the three fields are expected to produce around 30 million standard cubic metres of gas a day (1 billion cubic feet a day) when the third field, MJ, reaches peak production, billionaire Mukesh Ambani-led conglomerate said.

This is expected to account for around one-third of India’s current domestic gas production and meet about 15% of the country’s demand, Reliance added.

Reliance is the operator of the KG D6 block with a 66.67% participating interest and BP holds the rest.

Bengaluru (Reuters) – India’s Reliance Industries (RELI.NS) is in talks with foreign-currency loan lenders to raise up to $2 billion to fund the expansion of its oil-to-telecom conglomerate, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday, citing sources.

Reliance, led by billionaire Mukesh Ambani, plans to use India’s dedicated external commercial borrowing route to secure the loan, the report said.

The facility may have a maturity period of three to five years and part of the proceeds will also be used to refinance a loan that matures in September, Bloomberg report added.

Bank of America (BAC.N), Citigroup (C.N) and Standard Chartered (STAN.L) are among the lenders involved in the loan discussions, Bloomberg reported.

Reliance and the banks did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.

Reliance had said in August last year that it plans to invest 750 billion rupees ($9.12 billion) over 5 years to expand its oil to chemical business.

Among other moves, the conglomerate has been expanding its 5G services in the country, bolstering its streaming platform, JioCinema, with new content deals, offering cricket tournaments for free at its platform after spending billions to buy rights and making investments in green energy projects.

The deal between Reliance’s Viacom18 would see Warner Bros as well as its HBO content becoming available on Reliance’s JioCinema app, including popular movies and shows such as Succession, Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings and the Harry Potter series, according to a joint statement by the companies.

Reuters had reported the deal earlier on Thursday, quoting sources.

Shares of Network18 Media and Investments (NEFI.NS), Reliance Industries’ media entity, rose as much as 13.5% after the Reuters report.

The sources did not disclose the financials of the deal, but the statement described the content partnership as a “new multi-year agreement” which will start next month.

“HBO Original, Max Original and Warner Bros. Television series are set to premiere on JioCinema on the same day as the U.S.,” the companies said.

Clement Schwebig, President for India, Southeast Asia and Korea for Warner Bros, said the agreement was part of its commitment to the South Asia market, as the company looks to further strengthen the scale of its regional business.

One source told Reuters that the partnership would be exclusive and see most of Warner’s marquee content on the JioCinema platform. Warner cannot offer most of its popular titles to other Indian rivals including Amazon (AMZN.O) Prime Video and Disney (DIS.N) Hotstar, the source added.

“It’s a deep exclusive arrangement which will make JioCinema the house of Warner, HBO in India,” the source said.

The content deal will bring thousands of hours of streaming content onto JioCinema, which has become popular for showing the IPL cricket tournament on the platform for free in the ongoing season.

Viacom18 won the IPL digital streaming rights from 2023 to 2027 for around $2.9 billion, rights which Disney previously held. Viacom18’s shareholders include Reliance, Paramount Global (PARA.O) as well as Bodhi Tree, which is a joint venture between James Murdoch and a former Star India executive, Uday Shankar.

Bodhi Tree recently invested $528 million in Viacom18.

Several of HBO’s top rated shows, including Succession, had aired in India on the Disney Hotstar platform until March 31 as part of a deal between the two companies that ended on the date.

The source told Reuters that Warner so far had various arrangements with Indian streaming giants, but the Viacom-Warner deal will see consolidation of that library and will include HBO, Max and Warner content, among others.

JioCinema is seeking to compete with rivals including Netflix and Amazon in a market where such platforms are becoming increasingly popular, thanks to cheap data prices.

“These marquee deals from IPL to HBO are great for not only user acquisition but also for stickiness and mind share,” said Neil Shah, research director at Counterpoint Research.

For now, JioCinema is a small player. Netflix outperforms rivals in the subscription video-on-demand market, commanding a 39% share by revenue in 2021 compared to nearest rival Hotstar’s 23%, according to Media Partners Asia.

A little over 98% of the total votes polled on the resolution were in favour of Al-Rumayyan’s addition, Reliance said in a statement.

Last month, Reliance said Al-Rumayyan met all regulatory criteria for his appointment as an independent director, pending the shareholder vote on the decision.

That announcement came after media reports of shareholder California State Teachers’ Retirement Fund saying it would vote against the move, based on U.S. proxy advisory research firm Glass Lewis’ recommendation.

Al-Rumayyan’s inclusion was earlier widely seen as part of a process to formalise Reliance’s agreement to sell a 20% stake in its oil-to-chemical business to Aramco for $15 billion.

The Indian conglomerate, however, said last month that his appointment has no connection to the deal.

Al-Rumayyan has been the governor of the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia since 2015.