Reliance Industries’ Rs 53,125 crore rights issue: Here’s what you need to know

Reliance Industries (RIL) Rights Issue: Reliance Industries (RIL) had earlier announced its plans to raise Rs 53,125 crore through a 1:15 rights issue at a price of Rs 1,257 per share. In its earnings statement for the quarter ended March 2020, RIL had said that this would be India's biggest rights issue.

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Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director of Reliance Industries (Image source: REUTERS/Francis Mascarenhas)

Oil-to-telecom behemoth Reliance Industries (RIL) has fixed May 14 as the record date for the country’s biggest-ever rights issue. The Rs 53,125 crore issue which was announced by the company on April 30, is likely help the country’s most valuable business to cut down its net debt to a targeted zero, along with the recent deals with Facebook Silver Lake and Vista Equity Partners.

RIL had earlier announced its plans to raise Rs 53,125 crore through a 1:15 rights issue at a price of Rs 1,257 per share. In its earnings statement for the quarter ended March 2020, RIL had said that this would be India’s biggest rights issue.

The ratio of 1:15 means that one share will be offered for every 15 shares held. The record date to determine which shareholders will be eligible for RIL’s first rights issue in nearly three decades is May 14, 2020.

In an exchange filing to the BSE on Saturday, RIL said that it will notify the opening and closing dates for the rights issue separately.

Today, the company in a fresh BSE filing laid out the details of the issue, including the payment break-up. The company said that the issue size amount aggregating to Rs 53124,20,05,758. The company is set to issue 42,26,26,894 equity shares of the face value of Rs 10 each.

(Source: Reliance Industries stock exchange filing)

Separately, in the past three weeks, the company has announced three key deals with Facebook, Silver Lake and Vista Equity Partners over a strategic stake sale in Jio Platforms through which it managed to raise Rs 60,596 crore.

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The net debt of RIL was Rs 1.61 lakh crore as on March 31, 2020, compared to Rs 1.54 lakh crore in the corresponding period a year ago. The company plans to become net debt free by March 2021.