Billionaire Mukesh Ambani is likely to give some indications or roadmap of a timeline for the listing of the retail and digital subsidiaries of his conglomerate Reliance Industries at its annual general meeting scheduled for August 29.

Inclusivity and inclusion was a major theme in the FY24 annual report, and this is expected to translate into something concrete especially in financial services and telecom leveraging the group’s digital capabilities under Jio Platforms.

Jio Financial Services today announced setting up a subsidiary that will distribute financial products and allied services. The NBFC will be investing ₹1 lakh as capital in the new subsidiary.

Insiders said Ambani is likely to make up his mind on what to share at the AGM and the announcements to be made, just a few days prior to the event. However, the future direction of Reliance Retail and Jio Platforms as independent entities, spun off from the parent is what the street and other stakeholders are looking for. This is ‘unfinished business’ and there are expectations of it finding a mention at the AGM. Analysts at a few leading broker firms have been increasingly anticipating the IPOs of the two major businesses, with valuations of  over $100 billion.

Other entities

While both Reliance Retail and RJio are profitable, stable companies and significant contributors to RIL’s topline and bottomline, RJio is seen as the more mature business and likely to list first, sources had indicated to businessline.

Jio Financial Services has several irons in the fire, including its foray into the payments space. It has Jio Payments Bank — a joint venture with State Bank of India and Jio Payments Solutions — a payments aggregator company. Earlier this year, it entered into a tie-up with Reliance Retail to purchase telecom equipment and devices worth $4.3 billion, that would be sold to Jio Leasing Services which, in turn, would lease it to customers of RJio. The idea is to make 5G devices more affordable and thus achieve its inclusivity agenda.

Reliance Retail’s tie-up with Chinese fast fashion label Shein may figure in the speech since the Chinese brand is re-entering India four years after being banned from the country.

The future trajectory of the media business, formed as a result of the joint venture between RIL, Viacom18 and Walt Disney Company, is also expected. The plan is to merge the TV and digital media assets to form one huge media property.

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