After giving its shareholders and the country a Jio bonanza, India’s largest conglomerate plans to tap the renewable energy sector, making itself future ready.
Speaking at the company’s 40th Annual general meeting , Mukesh Ambani pressed upon the company’s plans to invest in new sources of energy like renewable and in materials having multiple new applications.
As a part of Reliance’s value-creation strategy for both our existing and new businesses, Ambani says, “India’s energy and materials demand will grow steadily to meet the needs of a fast-growing economy and the rapidly increasing aspirations of our people. We will invest in new sources of energy, aiming for leading positions in renewable. ”
He mentioned that the company has invested over 1.3 lakh crore in its energy and material businesses in a bid to strengthen the ‘Make in India’ initiative and has asked the leadership team in other consumer businesses to set themselves a target of achieving profitability similar to the energy and materials business within the coming decade.
Elaborating on the business’s financial position, he says that the company has made total capital investment of 330,000 crores, which would start generating revenues in the coming months. Out of the total investments, energy business holds strong significance.
The company has recently announced to an investment of Rs 40,000 Crore, along with its Joint venture partner BP, in the Krishna Godaveri-D6 gas field assets.
“Our energy and materials businesses constitute a strong platform to generate stable, annuity-like cash flows with a potential to reach EBITDA of ` 100,000 crore within the next few years. The company over the last five years has made capital investment of Rs 3.3 lakh crore, of which Rs 1.3 lakh crore were in its energy and material businesses and the remaining Rs 2 lakh crore in digital services”, says Ambani.
Mukesh Ambani has not has forayed into renewable in its full glory yet, unlike his younger brother Anil Ambani, Chairman, Reliance power. Other leading corporate house in the country like Tata, Adani, Mahindra, Aditya Birla are placing aggressive bets on their solar and wind portfolios with major on ground developments.
Last year, Mukesh Ambani joined hands with Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com, Jack Ma, founder and executive chairman of Alibaba group and Bill Gates, Co founder, Microsoft, among others, to set up Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV), a $1 billion fund to fight climate change through innovations in clean energy.
“Energy is one of the critical drivers for economic growth. Several parts of developing economies still do not have access to affordable and reliable energy. It is an immediate need to find and provide new energy sources that are affordable, clean and reliable for every person on our planet. Breakthrough Energy Ventures will help build the companies that can solve and deploy new energy solutions everywhere,” Ambani said in a statement last year.
Source: businessworld.in
