Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries has appointed the head of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund to its board, deepening ties between the powerful Indian conglomerate and the oil-rich Gulf kingdom.
Yasir al-Rumayyan, managing director of the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund, will join the board as an independent director, Ambani said at the company’s annual meeting on Thursday.
Rumayyan’s appointment is part of Reliance’s years-long attempt to remake the family-run conglomerate, founded by Mukesh’s father Dhirubhai almost 50 years ago, into a 21st-century business embedded in the global energy and technology economy.
Reliance brought in a series of strategic investors from tech and private equity to its digital and retail businesses last year. Facebook and Google have seats on the board of Reliance’s digital subsidiary Jio Platforms, in which they have invested billions of dollars.
The addition of Rumayyan, who is also chair of state energy giant Saudi Aramco, to the Reliance board highlights Ambani’s quest to deepen ties with the Gulf kingdom, whose oil and cash are vital to the future of the Indian group’s core refinery business.
Reliance is trying to close a $15bn investment from Saudi Arabia for a 20 per cent stake in the conglomerate’s refining and petrochemical assets, first announced by Ambani in 2019.
No comments:
Post a Comment