Reliance Industries

By Marianna Parraga

HOUSTON, July 21 (Reuters) - Refiners and oil-producing firms in the U.S. and elsewhere are gaining market share in Venezuela's crude as they sign direct contracts with state-run PDVSA, challenging the global traders that inked earlier deals with the government of interim President Delcy Rodriguez.

Trading houses Vitol and Trafigura currently control the lion's share of Venezuela's oil exports through agreements signed in January with Caracas that are overseen by Washington, allowing them to take more than 100 million barrels for resale to final buyers in six months.

PDVSA, however, is slowly going back to the business model it had before U.S. energy sanctions were imposed on the OPEC country in 2019, which prioritizes supply contracts with its joint-venture partners and refineries over intermediaries.

The model could secure better prices for PDVSA in longer sale deals, sources involved in the negotiations said.

U.S. refiner Phillips 66 PSX.N in May began buying spot cargoes from PDVSA after a seven-year pause. In July, the company was allocated three cargoes of flagship Merey 16 heavy crude for delivery at the country's main oil port, Jose, shipping documents showed.

India's refiner Reliance Industries RELI.NS also began direct crude purchases from PDVSA in May, according to the documents, with those barrels now complementing cargoes bought from Vitol, Trafigura and Chevron CVX.N to secure volumes large enough to meet demand.

Valero Energy VLO.N and Thailand's Tipco Asphalt TASCO.BK are expected to begin direct purchases in the coming months, the sources said. But, as of mid-July, they had not been assigned loading windows yet, according to the documents.

The four companies had crude supply contracts with PDVSA until early 2019, when U.S. sanctions cut Venezuela's oil exports to the U.S., Europe and some Asian countries. The state company wants them to return to its pool of customers to diversify destinations and prices, while securing long-term pacts to allocate heavy grades that can be otherwise difficult to market, a company source said.

PDVSA, Venezuela's oil ministry, Chevron, Phillips 66, Valero and Reliance did not reply to requests for comment. Tipco said the company has not completed any purchases yet.

The U.S. Energy Department in May said Venezuela's overall oil sales were representing $2 billion to $3 billion per month, with about half of the volume bound for the U.S. The department has listed units of TotalEnergies TTEF.PA, Aramco, Chevron, Citgo Petroleum, Exxon Mobil XOM.N, Marathon Petroleum MPC.N, Pemex, PBF Energy PBF.N, Phillips 66, Trafigura, Valero and Vitol as importers in the U.S. this year, without elaborating on sale terms.

PARTNERS EXPANDING

With Venezuela now exporting over 1.2 million barrels per day (bpd) of oil and fuel -- an increase from an average of 847,000 bpd in 2025 -- PDVSA's largest partners are also expanding their intake of Venezuelan oil, according to the documents and data based on tanker movements.

Chevron in the second quarter exported some 293,000 bpd of Venezuelan crude to its refineries and others, an increase from 223,000 bpd in the previous quarter and a concrete step towards its goal of expanding output and exports in Venezuela.

Spain's Repsol REP.MC began loading directly Merey 16 crude at Jose in July after buying from traders in previous months, while Italy's Eni ENI.MI also was allocated a cargo bound for Europe this year, the documents showed. The oil is amortizing pending debt to the companies, sources said.

Chevron, Repsol and Eni are among firms that have this year announced oil and gas project expansions in Venezuela. Exports from their joint ventures are expected to grow in another challenge to the volumes allocated to trading firms.

The global traders, on their side, are also seeking to expand businesses in Venezuela. Trafigura has a small team already operating from Caracas, while Vitol is preparing to hire about a dozen people there.

Venezuela expects crude output to rise to 1.37 million bpd by year-end from current 1.2 million bpd, creating room for more supplies and competition.

(Reporting by Marianna Parraga; Additional reporting by Nicole Jao and Sheila Dang; Editing by Andrea Ricci )

(([email protected]; +1 713 371 7559; Reuters Messaging: @mariannaparraga))

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.

By Shritama Bose

MUMBAI, July 20 (Reuters Breakingviews) - India's economy and currency are getting battered by the latest energy shock, but the performance of its largest company stands in stark contrast. The cash cow refining unit of Mukesh Ambani's $186 billion Reliance Industries RELI.NS grew earnings strongly last quarter despite crude supply pressures. Its accomplishment is as much a marker of its growing challenges as a testament to the group's operational resilience.

In an investor meeting on Friday, Chief Financial Officer V Srikanth described as "extraordinary" the economic conditions and supply disruptions of the three months to the end of June. Yet revenue at Reliance's oil-to-chemicals business reversed the previous year's decline to surge 30%. EBITDA grew 17%, faster than its pace a year ago.

That offers some respite for Ambani's conglomerate, which derives well over half of its annual revenue from the refining unit. Concerns around the Iran war have dragged Reliance shares down 15% so far this year, twice as much as the benchmark Nifty 50 Index .NSEI.

The company improved its performance by switching crude sourcing from the Middle East to Russia, Latin America and Africa. It helped that its complex refining capabilities can profitably process heavier grades of crude. Reliance also redirected its refined goods from Europe to markets like Singapore and Australia, where higher supply deficits supported margins.

That wasn't enough, though, to offset the hit from absorbing higher crude prices on fuel sales at Indian pumps. An official mandate to divert capacity to producing liquefied petroleum gas for domestic consumption from more lucrative export-bound products weighed on the unit's EBITDA margin, which fell by a full percentage point to 8.4%.

That shows the limits to Reliance's operational strengths. As hostilities in the Middle East flare up again after a short-lived ceasefire, the group will be forced to keep up its delicate balancing act for longer.

Pressure on earnings could intensify after New Delhi hiked levies on diesel and jet fuel exports earlier this month, after two months of gradual cuts. Crude price spikes may also become harder to manage whenever China, whose considerable stockpiles have allowed it to stay away from oil buying, returns to the market.

The spate of extraordinary conditions looks poised to last. That means Ambani's flagship has to fight to keep to its winning ways.

Follow Shritama Bose on LinkedIn and X.

CONTEXT NEWS

Reliance Industries on July 17 reported a 25% year-on-year decline in consolidated net profit to 231.96 billion rupees ($2.4 billion) for the three months to the end of June. Profit fell due to the effect of a high base caused by a one-off sale of the company's shares in Asian Paints in the corresponding period last year.

The company's flagship oil-to-chemicals division logged a 30% increase in revenue to 2 trillion rupees and a 17% rise in EBITDA to 170 billion rupees during the reporting quarter.

(Editing by Antony Currie; Production by Aditya Srivastav)

((For previous columns by the author, Reuters customers can click on BOSE/[email protected]))

July 17 (Reuters) - Reliance Industries Ltd RELI.NS:

• RELIANCE INDUSTRIES Q1 CONSOL NET PROFIT 209.46 BILLION RUPEES; IBES PROFIT EST. 185.50 BILLION RUPEES

• RELIANCE INDUSTRIES Q1 CONSOL REV FROM OPS 3.12 TRLN RUPEES

Further company coverage: RELI.NS

(([email protected];))

Updates July 15 story with Nuclear Power Corporation statement in paragraph 13

By Munsif Vengattil and Aditya Kalra

BENGALURU, July 15 (Reuters) - Ransomware group World Leaks has posted on the dark web a huge cache of files related to India's largest nuclear plant, including purported blueprints of parts of its facilities and supplier details — information it labelled as coming from Reliance Group.

The Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant, located in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, is the largest of India's seven nuclear plants and central to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ambitious plans to expand the country's atomic energy capacity.

Indian businessman Anil Ambani's Reliance Group, one of the plant's contractors, told Reuters in a statement that there had been a "partial breach" of its data on a server hosted by third-party Indian data centre service provider Yotta, and that the government has been informed about the incident.

Reliance did not disclose what data had been breached.

The data breach could pose a "serious" risk to the safety of the plant, says Nickolas Roth, a senior director at the Nuclear Threat Initiative, which advises governments and benchmarks countries' preparedness on nuclear security. The breach also underscores how hacks have become more common in India, where many companies are ill-equipped to deal with such threats.

Nearly 19,000 files totalling 14.3 gigabytes that appear for the search term "KKNP" - an acronym for the nuclear plant - in the data have been online since June 11, according to independent cybersecurity researcher Rakesh Krishnan, who first alerted Reuters to the leak.

Reuters reviewed the documents, which were dated from 2016 to mid-2025, but could not verify their authenticity. In addition to some blueprints and supplier details, they purportedly show meeting and inspection records, equipment reviews and insurance policies.

The 19,000 files appeared to be the most sensitive of a total 858,000 Reliance files on the World Leaks website.

One of the conglomerate's subsidiaries, Reliance Infrastructure RLIN.NS, won a contract in 2018 to design and build infrastructure for the plant's Unit 3 and Unit 4. Both units, still under construction, are due to be operational by 2027 and are slated to provide a combined 2,000 megawatts of capacity.

World Leaks, a well-known ransomware group that has previously targeted Nike NKE.N and India's Tata Group, did not respond to Reuters queries on the Reliance data breach. The group typically posts stolen corporate data on its website after companies decline to pay the ransom demanded. Its website can only be accessed with a specialised browser.

In June, World Leaks told Reuters it had sought $1.5 million in ransom for Tata Group files that contained confidential component designs of clients Apple AAPL.O and Tesla TSLA.O, adding that it posted the data after Tata "ignored" its demand.

SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY ON SERVER IN MAY

The Nuclear Power Corporation of India, which commissions and operates the country's nuclear power plants, has been communicating with Reliance about the breach and India's main cybersecurity agency — the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) — is looking into the incident, according to a source familiar with the matter. The source declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the issue.

The Nuclear Power Corporation said in a statement after publication of this article that the information said to be available in the public domain pertains only to common service facilities and does not relate to any nuclear safety or nuclear security-related systems.

CERT-In and Modi's office did not respond to Reuters queries. India's Department of Atomic Energy declined to comment.

Yotta said in a statement it had noted suspicious activity on May 29 on a server it hosts that belongs to Reliance Infrastructure. It said the activity was immediately terminated and that the suspected ransomware execution was prevented, but Reliance Infrastructure informed it at the end of June that there had been claims of a data breach made by "external threat actors."

Yotta said it has not been able to verify the claims of the "threat actor", but added that it has shared its detailed technical investigation with Reliance Infrastructure and supports an ongoing investigation.

BLUEPRINTS AND INSURANCE POLICIES

The documents posted on World Leaks do not appear to relate to the nuclear reactors' core systems, which are supplied by Russia's state-owned Rosatom.

They did contain purported blueprints for the ventilation and cooling systems used in Unit 3 and Unit 4, as well as what appeared to be the complete floor layout of a "common control room".

The files also included what appeared to be vendor proposals, a list of approved suppliers, and a record of a 2024 meeting about a joint inspection by the Nuclear Power Corporation and Reliance, with photos of equipment.

Another document purports to show that Reliance Infrastructure and the Nuclear Power Corporation had taken out an insurance policy that would entitle them to $112 million if either Unit 3 or Unit 4 were to suffer an act of terrorism.

The files, in the hands of bad actors, could in theory be exploited to map the plant's support systems, identify its suppliers and pinpoint weaknesses in its security chain, according to researchers.

They could "show an adversary not just who has access to the project but which systems that access reaches," said Nuclear Threat Initiative's Roth.

India ranks third among a list of countries suffering the most data breaches, with 28.9 million accounts compromised last year, lagging only the United States and France, according to cybersecurity company Surfshark.

A report last year by the Data Security Council of India and cybersecurity firm Seqrite said that of 204 organisations surveyed across India, some 73% were "unaware if they have ever been attacked" while 57% lack cyber hygiene practices.

It is also the second time that the Kudankulam plant has been linked to a cyber incident, with malware tied to a North Korean hacker group found on the plant's administrative network in 2019. At the time, the Nuclear Power Corporation said the matter was investigated immediately and plant systems were not affected.

(Reporting by Munsif Vengattil in Bengaluru and Aditya Kalra in New Delhi; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)

(([email protected];))

By Munsif Vengattil and Aditya Kalra

BENGALURU, July 15 (Reuters) - Ransomware group World Leaks has posted on the dark web a huge cache of files related to India's largest nuclear plant, including purported blueprints of parts of its facilities and supplier details — information it labelled as coming from Reliance Group.

The Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant, located in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, is the largest of India's seven nuclear plants and central to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ambitious plans to expand the country's atomic energy capacity.

Indian businessman Anil Ambani's Reliance Group, one of the plant's contractors, told Reuters in a statement that there had been a "partial breach" of its data on a server hosted by third-party Indian data centre service provider Yotta, and that the government has been informed about the incident.

Reliance did not disclose what data had been breached.

The data breach could pose a "serious" risk to the safety of the plant, says Nickolas Roth, a senior director at the Nuclear Threat Initiative, which advises governments and benchmarks countries' preparedness on nuclear security. The breach also underscores how hacks have become more common in India, where many companies are ill-equipped to deal with such threats.

Reuters reviewed the documents, which were dated from 2016 to mid-2025, but could not verify their authenticity. In addition to some blueprints and supplier details, they purportedly show meeting and inspection records, equipment reviews and insurance policies.

The 19,000 files appeared to be the most sensitive of a total 858,000 Reliance files on the World Leaks website.

One of the conglomerate's subsidiaries, Reliance Infrastructure RLIN.NS, won a contract in 2018 to design and build infrastructure for the plant's Unit 3 and Unit 4. Both units, still under construction, are due to be operational by 2027 and are slated to provide a combined 2,000 megawatts of capacity.

World Leaks, a well-known ransomware group that has previously targeted Nike NKE.N and India's Tata Group, did not respond to Reuters queries on the Reliance data breach. The group typically posts stolen corporate data on its website after companies decline to pay the ransom demanded. Its website can only be accessed with a specialised browser.

In June, World Leaks told Reuters it had sought $1.5 million in ransom for Tata Group files that contained confidential component designs of clients Apple AAPL.O and Tesla TSLA.O, adding that it posted the data after Tata "ignored" its demand.

SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY ON SERVER IN MAY

The Nuclear Power Corporation of India, which commissions and operates the country's nuclear power plants, has been communicating with Reliance about the breach and India's main cybersecurity agency — the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) — is looking into the incident, according to a source familiar with the matter. The source declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the issue.

Nuclear Power Corporation Chairman Rajesh Veeraraghavan, CERT-In and the government's main press office did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Yotta said in a statement it had noted suspicious activity on May 29 on a server it hosts that belongs to Reliance Infrastructure. It said the activity was immediately terminated and that the suspected ransomware execution was prevented, but Reliance Infrastructure informed it at the end of June that there had been claims of a data breach made by "external threat actors."

Yotta said it has not been able to verify the claims of the "threat actor", but added that it has shared its detailed technical investigation with Reliance Infrastructure and supports an ongoing investigation.

India's Department of Atomic Energy declined to comment, while Modi's office did not respond to Reuters queries.

BLUEPRINTS AND INSURANCE POLICIES

The documents posted on World Leaks do not appear to relate to the nuclear reactors' core systems, which are supplied by Russia's state-owned Rosatom.

They did contain purported blueprints for the ventilation and cooling systems used in Unit 3 and Unit 4, as well as what appeared to be the complete floor layout of a "common control room".

The files also included what appeared to be vendor proposals, a list of approved suppliers, and a record of a 2024 meeting about a joint inspection by the Nuclear Power Corporation and Reliance, with photos of equipment.

Another document purports to show that Reliance Infrastructure and the Nuclear Power Corporation had taken out an insurance policy that would entitle them to $112 million if either Unit 3 or Unit 4 were to suffer an act of terrorism.

The files, in the hands of bad actors, could in theory be exploited to map the plant's support systems, identify its suppliers and pinpoint weaknesses in its security chain, according to researchers.

They could "show an adversary not just who has access to the project but which systems that access reaches," said Nuclear Threat Initiative's Roth.

India ranks third among a list of countries suffering the most data breaches, with 28.9 million accounts compromised last year, lagging only the United States and France, according to cybersecurity company Surfshark.

A report last year by the Data Security Council of India and cybersecurity firm Seqrite said that of 204 organisations surveyed across India, some 73% were "unaware if they have ever been attacked" while 57% lack cyber hygiene practices.

It is also the second time that the Kudankulam plant has been linked to a cyber incident, with malware tied to a North Korean hacker group found on the plant's administrative network in 2019. At the time, the Nuclear Power Corporation said the matter was investigated immediately and plant systems were not affected.

(Reporting by Munsif Vengattil in Bengaluru and Aditya Kalra in New Delhi; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)

(([email protected];))

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.

By Shritama Bose

MUMBAI, July 8 (Reuters Breakingviews) - India has survived a massive withdrawal of hot overseas money. In fact, the domestic stock market barely flinched. Now falling oil prices and a search for shelter from AI exuberance are luring foreigners back in after they pulled out a record $48 billion over the past year and a half. But bargains may prove scarce thanks to local mom-and-pop investors setting a firm floor for valuations.

Granted, perceptions of the country being an AI laggard and a major economic victim of the Iran war precipitated a 15% drop in the Nifty 50 index .NSEI in the first three months of the year. A partial recovery since leaves the metric essentially flat over the past 12 months. Now global funds are returning, if gingerly, investing a net $401 million into Indian equities in the first week of July.

They're coming back to valuations that have barely budged. The MSCI India index .MIIN00000PIN is trading at 20 times forward earnings, on a par with its 10-year average. That's due in large part to the 335 billion rupees ($3.5 billion) of monthly inflows that retail investors pour into equity and hybrid schemes of local asset managers, fuelled partly by a wildly successful decade-long industry publicity campaign.

It's some comfort for companies planning mega initial public offerings this year, from Reliance Industries' RELI.NS telecom business Jio Platforms to bourse operator National Stock Exchange. What appears to be stable and sizeable domestic interest in equities boosts issuers' bargaining power against domestic money managers like State Bank of India-backed SBI.NS SBI Funds and $17 billion ICICI Prudential Asset Management IICL.NS, which are under pressure to swiftly deploy chunks of the inflows they receive. The combined $7 billion the two companies seem likely to raise is equivalent to two months of equity fund inflows.

To be sure, there were some cracks in retail confidence too. Months of poor returns, as well as the Middle East conflict, pushed inflows to a one-year low in May. Earnings at Nifty 50 companies, which Kotak Institutional Equities estimates grew 8% during the financial year ended March 31, may test the patience of investors used to double-digit increases.

Ultimately, tight capital controls put a lid on domestic money leaving the country, and Indian savers no longer like low-yielding bank deposits. Combined with a more sizeable return of foreign cash, that could yet push stocks up. But locals' ability to roll with the punches is a victory in itself.

Follow Shritama Bose on LinkedIn and X.

CONTEXT NEWS

Foreign investors pumped a net $401 million into Indian equities during the first five sessions of trade in July, showed data from NSDL.

(Editing by Antony Currie; Production by Ujjaini Dutta)

((For previous columns by the author, Reuters customers can click on BOSE/[email protected]))

** Shares of India's South West Pinnacle Exploration SWPI.NS rise 1.5% to 223.01 rupees

** Co says Reliance Industries RELI.NS extended contract worth over 1.67 billion rupees ($17.52 million) for coal bed methane drilling in Madhya Pradesh

** More than 244,724 shares change hands by 11:45 a.m. IST vs 30-day avg of 558,275 shares

** Stock up 15.8% YTD

(Reporting by Payel Das in Bengaluru)

(([email protected]))

MUMBAI, July 6 (Reuters) - India's Jio Credit has accepted bids worth 10 billion rupees ($104.8 million) for bonds maturing in three years, three bankers said on Monday.

The company will pay an annual coupon of 7.78% and had invited bids for the issue earlier in the day, they said.

The company did not immediately respond to a Reuters email seeking comment.

Here is the list of deals reported so far on July 6:

*Size includes base plus greenshoe for some issues

($1 = 95.4275 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Dharamraj Dhutia and Khushi Malhotra; Editing by Varun H K)

(([email protected]))

MUMBAI, July 3 (Reuters) - India's Jio Credit plans to raise up to 10 billion rupees ($105.03 million), including a greenshoe option of 5 billion rupees, through a sale of bonds maturing in three years, three bankers said on Friday.

It has invited coupon and commitment bids for the issue on Monday, they said.

The company did not immediately respond to a Reuters email seeking comment.

Here is the list of deals reported so far on July 3:

*Size includes base plus greenshoe for some issues

($1 = 95.2100 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Dharamraj Dhutia and Khushi Malhotra)

(([email protected], [email protected]))

July 2 (Reuters) - Danish brewer Carlsberg CARLb.CO has confidentially filed draft papers for an initial public offering of its Indian unit that could raise as much as $700 million, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter.

The listing is expected to involve a secondary share sale and could take place later this year, the report said.

Reuters could not immediately verify the report and Carlsberg did not respond to a request for comment.

Details of the IPO, including the size, structure and timing of the transaction, could still change, Bloomberg said.

The potential listing will add to an already busy year for India's IPO market, where heavyweight offerings from Jio Platforms and the National Stock Exchange of India NSEI.NS could test investor appetite.

Jio's planned $3.8 billion offering could become India's biggest-ever listing, while NSE's long-awaited debut is also expected to rank among the largest.

(Reporting by Mridula Kumar in Bengaluru; Editing by Sonia Cheema)

(([email protected]))

July 1 (Reuters) - NIKKEI:

• JAPAN TO OFFER TRADE INSURANCE ON LOAN FOR RELIANCE'S INDIA SOLAR, BATTERY EFFORT - NIKKEI

• JAPAN TO PROVIDE TRADE INSURANCE ON 100 BILLION YEN SYNDICATED LOAN TO RELIANCE INDUSTRIES - NIKKEI

• NIPPON EXPORT AND INVESTMENT INSURANCE & RELIANCE WILL SIGN MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING ON JULY 2 - NIKKEI

• TOTAL OF 7 BANKS LED BY JAPAN'S MUFG BANK WILL JOIN FORCES TO PROVIDE FINANCING IN YEN AND DOLLARS TO RELIANCE INDUSTRIES - NIKKEI

Further company coverage: RELI.NS

(([email protected];))

June 25 (Reuters) - Reliance Industries Ltd RELI.NS:

• INDIA MARKETS REGULATOR SEEKS CLARIFICATION FROM JIO PLATFORMS ON ITS IPO FILING- SEBI DOCUMENT

Further company coverage: RELI.NS

(([email protected];))

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.

By Shritama Bose

MUMBAI, June 22 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Mukesh Ambani is making bold promises about connectivity. But he has already disappointed the A-list backers in his telecoms company. And the billionaire's latest pledges that the business will tighten its grip on India's data market and push into foreign ones deserve more scepticism from investors considering jumping into its upcoming initial public offering.

Jio Platforms' up to $3.8 billion share sale could be India’s largest listing on record. The company's prospectus filed late on Friday, though, confirmed the company would only be offering new stock. This means the outsiders led by Meta META.O, Alphabet’s GOOGL.O Google and KKR KKR.N which own a third of existing shares, will wait longer to crystallise tepid returns.

In 2020, they bought the promise that $188 billion Reliance Industries RELI.NS would transform Jio into a tech platform offering services from cloud computing to connected homes. Six years on, that target looks far from achieved: Jio still earns 94% of its profit from volume-led monetisation of its 524 million mobile subscribers. And although its 528-page prospectus waxes lyrical about its autonomous platforms and proprietary technology stack, Jio lags its main rival, $123 billion Bharti Airtel BRTI.NS, on basic measures, including EBITDA margins and average revenue per user.

That undercuts Ambani’s latest wide-ranging promises, including a vow to deepen his dominance of the home broadband market, where Jio caters to 43% of India's 64 million premium subscribers. He’s also touting venturing into satellite communications and unnamed markets overseas, including offering its AI engine, JioBrain, to other global telecoms companies.

Out of all of these, Jio's domestic ambitions look most within reach. That said, Indian regulators impose ceilings on some mobile tariffs and it is hard to grow a premium service like broadband in a market where most consumers are poor. Rules on net neutrality may also hamper Ambani's ability to offer business clients higher-yielding differentiated services.

Jio’s targeted $130 billion market capitalisation is already a big step down from the $180 billion price tag bullish analysts assigned it earlier this year before the Iran war knocked the rupee. But even this revised figure will require investors to pay a multiple of 35 times Jio’s earnings for 2027, per Visible Alpha estimates. Compare that to 30 times for Airtel, which already generates around one-third of its EBITDA outside of India.

There isn't anything compelling in the Jio filing to support a premium valuation. If Ambani wants his IPO to fly, he may need to trim his ambitions further.

Follow Shritama Bose on LinkedIn and X.

CONTEXT NEWS

Jio Platforms, the telecoms business of Reliance Industries, will raise up to $3.8 billion in a Mumbai initial public offering, which could be India's largest on record, Reuters reported on June 19, citing unnamed sources.

The offer will comprise up to 270 million new shares, equivalent to 2.9% of the total enlarged share count, Jio’s prospectus showed. The fundraising target implies a market capitalisation of $130 billion.

Proceeds will be used to repay subsidiary borrowings and general corporate purposes.

The deal has 19 book-running lead managers led by Kotak Mahindra and Morgan Stanley.

Jio is evaluating the development of a sovereign low earth orbit satellite constellation for India, Reliance Chair Mukesh Ambani said at the company's annual shareholder meeting on June 19.

(Editing by Una Galani; Production by Ujjaini Dutta)

((For previous columns by the author, Reuters customers can click on BOSE/[email protected]))

Reliance Industries announced that the board of its material subsidiary Jio Platforms has approved the Draft Red Herring Prospectus for an initial public offering. The IPO will involve a fresh issue of up to 27 crore equity shares with a face value of ₹10 each, with the issue price to be determined through book building. The filing paves the way for Jio Platforms to list on Indian stock exchanges, subject to regulatory approvals. Jio Platforms, which houses Reliance's digital services business including Jio telecom and JioMart, is one of the largest digital ecosystems in India. The IPO proceeds will flow to Jio Platforms, and the listing is expected to provide a public valuation benchmark for the subsidiary.

Powered by Tijori

Adds details throughout on Jio Platforms

MUMBAI, June 19 (Reuters) - Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Jio Platforms filed regulatory papers for an IPO on Friday that sources said would raise about $3.8 billion, making it the country's biggest-ever stock offering.

Another IPO that is in the pipeline - by the National Stock Exchange of India - is likely to be worth about $3.3 billion.

Here are the five largest Indian IPOs to date:

HYUNDAI MOTOR INDIA

Hyundai HYUN.NS, the world's third-largest automaker and India's fourth-biggest passenger vehicle maker, raised 278.7 billion rupees ($2.95 billion) in October 2024 in what is currently India's biggest-ever IPO.

The manufacturer's South Korean parent 005380.KS sold a 17.5% stake in a pure offer-for-sale, where existing shareholders sell shares and no new capital is raised. Jio Platforms is expected to use a similar approach, with the company's major investors set to dilute their stakes.

LIFE INSURANCE CORPORATION OF INDIA

The government pocketed roughly 205 billion rupees ($2.17 billion) from selling a 3.5% stake in India's largest insurer and biggest domestic financial investor LIFI.NS, a far cry from its initial target of up to $12 billion.

The shares slid nearly 8% on their debut.

PAYTM

Paytm PAYT.NS, an Indian fintech firm, raised 183 billion rupees in November 2021 in a mix of a fresh share issue and an offer for sale. Ant Group reduced its stake to 23% from 28% and SoftBank's Vision Fund pared its holding to 16%.

Paytm lost more than 27% on its debut, the biggest listing-day drop in Indian IPO history at the time.

TATA CAPITAL

The Tata Group's financial services arm TATC.NS raised 155 billion rupees in October 2025, with Tata Sons and IFC among those selling in the offer for sale component alongside a fresh issue. The IPO was the largest-ever by a non-banking financial company in India. The shares listed at a slight premium of 1.23%.

LG ELECTRONICS INDIA

South Korean parent LG Electronics 066570.KS offloaded a 15% stake in its Indian unit LGEL.NS, a maker of refrigerators, washing machines, air conditioners and televisions, in a pure offer for sale issue, netting 116 billion rupees in October 2025.

The IPO was oversubscribed 54 times - the most heavily subscribed major Indian IPO since Reliance Power's listing in 2008 - attracting bids worth about 4.4 trillion rupees.

LG's shares surged 50% on their first day of trading, valuing the unit higher than its Seoul-based parent.

($1 = 94.3800 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Vibhuti Sharma and Jayshree P. Upadhyay in Mumbai; Editing by AdityaKate Mayberry and Kevin Buckland)

(([email protected];))

Updates to add IPO filing by NSE

MUMBAI, June 18 (Reuters) - The National Stock Exchange of India has filed draft papers for a long-delayed listing that will be one of two mega initial public offerings in the country this year, alongside billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Jio.

NSE's IPO is likely to be worth $3.3 billion, based on its share price in private markets, and comes after years of regulatory delays. Existing investors will sell 6% of the company's equity as part of the issue, which will be a pure offer-for-sale with no fresh equity being raised.

Ambani's AI-to-telecoms arm Reliance Jio Platforms is also gearing up for a stock offering that will likely be India's biggest ever.

Sources told Reuters in January that the IPO could be worth as much as $4 billion, though final numbers will only be decided later. In November, investment bank Jefferies estimated that Reliance Jio's valuation stood at $180 billion.

Here are the five largest Indian IPOs of all time before NSE and Jio Platforms:

HYUNDAI MOTOR INDIA

Hyundai HYUN.NS, the world's third-largest automaker and India's fourth-biggest passenger vehicle maker, raised 278.7 billion Indian rupees ($2.95 billion) in October 2024 in India's largest-ever IPO.

The manufacturer's South Korean parent 005380.KS sold a 17.5% stake in a pure offer-for-sale, where existing shareholders sell shares and no new capital is raised. Jio Platforms is expected to use a similar approach, with the company's major investors expected to dilute their stakes.

LIFE INSURANCE CORPORATION OF INDIA

The government pocketed roughly 205 billion Indian rupees from selling a 3.5% stake in India's largest insurer and biggest domestic financial investor LIFI.NS, a far cry from its initial target of up to $12 billion.

The shares slid nearly 8% on their debut.

PAYTM

Paytm PAYT.NS, India's fintech firm, raised 183 billion Indian rupees in November 2021 in a mix of a fresh share issue and an offer for sale. Ant Group reduced its stake to 23% from 28% and SoftBank's Vision Fund pared its holding to 16%.

Paytm lost more than 27% on its debut, the biggest listing-day drop in Indian IPO history at the time.

TATA CAPITAL

The Tata Group's financial services arm TATC.NS raised 155 billion Indian rupees in October 2025, with Tata Sons and IFC among those selling in the offer for sale component alongside a fresh issue. The IPO was the largest-ever by a non-banking financial company in India.

The shares listed at a slight premium of 1.23%.

LG ELECTRONICS INDIA

South Korean parent LG Electronics 066570.KS offloaded a 15% stake in its Indian unit LGEL.NS, a maker of refrigerators, washing machines, air conditioners and televisions, in a pure offer for sale issue, netting 116 billion Indian rupees in October 2025.

The IPO was oversubscribed 54 times - the most heavily subscribed major Indian IPO since Reliance Power's listing in 2008 - attracting bids worth about 4.4 trillion rupees.

LG's shares surged 50% on their first day of trading, valuing the unit higher than its Seoul-based parent.

($1 = 94.3800 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Vibhuti Sharma and Jayshree P. Upadhyay in Mumbai; Editing by Aditya Kalra, Kate Mayberry and Kevin Buckland)

(([email protected];))

MUMBAI, June 16 (Reuters) - India's Jio Credit has accepted bids worth 15 billion rupees ($158.40 million) in a sale of bonds maturing in five years, three bankers said on Tuesday.

It will pay a coupon of 8.15% and had invited commitment bids for the issue on Monday, they said.

The company did not respond to a Reuters email seeking comment.

Here is the list of deals reported so far on June 16:

*Size includes base plus greenshoe for some issues

($1 = 94.6975 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Dharamraj Dhutia and Khushi Malhotra; Editing by Sonia Cheema)

(([email protected], [email protected]))

** Morgan Stanley expects Reliance RELI.NS AI/data center business to deliver returns above 12% (ROCE) or about twice the returns from its telecom and consumer investments over the past decade

** Adds that RELI's $110 billion AI investment target over seven years is as large as its earlier consumer business spending

** On Wednesday, Meta META.O said it will lease an AI-ready data centre to be built by Mukesh Ambani's company

** Shares trade flat on Thursday

** Meta is already a major investor in IPO-bound Jio Platforms, and formed a JV last year with RELI to develop AI tools for enterprises using its Llama models

**Twenty-nine analysts have a "buy" rating on avg on RELI; median PT is 1,695 rupees - data compiled by LSEG

** YTD, RELI down ~20%

(Reporting by Urvi Dugar in Bengaluru)

(([email protected];))

June 10 (Reuters) - Facebook-parent Meta META.O said on Wednesday that it has tied up with Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries RELI.NS for an AI-enabled data center in India.

Reliance will build a data center with 168 MW capacity in Jamnagar, Gujarat, which Meta will lease, with options to scale, according to the statement.

(Reporting by Gursimran Kaur in Bengaluru; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips)

(([email protected];))

By Vivek Kumar M

June 9 (Reuters) - Jio BlackRock Asset Management plans to launch its first exchange-traded funds in India by August, seeking to replicate BlackRock's global success in passive investing in a market where ETFs are still nascent.

The joint venture between Mukesh Ambani's Jio Financial Services JIOF.NS and the world's largest asset manager has amassed about 180 billion rupees ($1.9 billion) in assets under management in roughly a year since its launch by building a base in cash, debt-index and active equity funds.

It plans to start with equity-focused ETF strategies.

BlackRock oversees about $5.1 trillion in ETF assets globally, more than a third of its total assets under management, underscoring the importance of the product line to its franchise. Jio BlackRock currently ranks as India's 29th-largest asset manager.

"ETFs are a long-term play. While it is a predominantly institutional heavy market (in India), retail are starting to get more involved in ETFs. And we can see from global trends how well ETFs have been adopted as a choice for investing," Sid Swaminathan, managing director and chief executive officer of Jio BlackRock Asset Management, told Reuters.

ETF INNOVATION COULD BOOST LIQUIDITY

Passive mutual fund assets in India stood at 15.20 trillion rupees in April, or about 18.5% of the industry's 81.94 trillion rupees in average assets under management, according to data from the mutual fund industry association.

By comparison, equity index funds and ETFs account for about 45.3% of long-term mutual fund and ETF assets in the U.S.

Swaminathan said tighter bid-offer spreads and more innovative strategies could help improve liquidity and boost retail participation in Indian ETFs.

The company also plans to launch products in Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT City), India's low-tax financial hub competing with centres such as Singapore and Dubai, within the next couple of months.

COMPLEX PRODUCTS PROMPT PIVOT TO DISTRIBUTOR-LED MODEL

For more complex offerings, including special investment funds and GIFT City products, Jio BlackRock has adopted a distributor-led model rather than a digital-first approach, reflecting the continued role of advisers in selling higher-ticket products.

Swaminathan said the decision to prioritise those launches was partly shaped by market conditions. India's benchmark Nifty 50 .NSEI is down 11.1% so far in 2026 amid foreign outflows, higher oil prices and moderating earnings growth, while MSCI’s Asia-Pacific ex-Japan index .MIAPJ0000PUS is up 18.2%.

($1 = 95.3500 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Vivek Kumar M in Bengaluru. Editing by Mark Potter)

(([email protected];))

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are her own. Updates to add graphic.

By Shritama Bose

MUMBAI, June 4 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Finding a good job in India is going to get a lot harder. Headcount growth at its biggest private company, $190 billion Reliance Industries RELI.NS, is slowing sharply as an investment binge fades. But a chronic skills shortage also gives businesses a strong incentive to rapidly adopt artificial intelligence. That will turn today's hiring squeeze into a deeper, structural slump.

The energy-to-retail giant's over 419,000 headcount as of March 2026 represents 4% year-on-year growth, just one quarter of its expansion rate the previous year. Its disclosures have turned hazier too: last year Reliance discontinued a table in its annual report offering a detailed breakdown of employees across business divisions.

The hiring slowdown is partly explained by the end of a phase of higher recruitment for its fledgling renewable energy business. But the growth remains well below India's 7%-plus GDP growth—and the squeeze could soon become entrenched: Reliance says it is "building talent fluent in leveraging AI to enhance decision-making, productivity and purpose-driven work", implying that the impact of AI on hiring will become clearer next year.

The problem is pronounced at IT outsourcers like $85 billion Tata Consultancy Services TCS.NS, the country's second-largest company by market capitalisation, and Infosys INFY.NS, where the number of employees is now up to 5% below their respective March 2023 peaks, thanks to a slowdown in revenue growth and rise of new coding tools.

Indeed, future job growth is a bigger worry than headline-grabbing layoffs, as the government's Chief Economic Advisor V. Anantha Nageswaran warned in February. His call on the private sector to hire more and balance capital-intensive growth with labor-intensive growth has gone unanswered by industry titans. Urban youth unemployment is as high as 13.6% and it's common for college graduates to queue up for janitorial roles in the public sector.

The danger is employers – who have long complained that India's 600 million-strong workforce does not have the modern skills required for the service-oriented economy – will turn to AI as a quick fix and adopt new technologies faster. Some 65% of respondents to a World Economic Forum survey saw a skills gap in India as a challenge to business transformation, and more than one-third of them expected talent availability to worsen over the five years to 2030. Indian employers plan to outpace global adoption in computing technologies, quantum and encryption to transform their businesses, according to the WEF's Future of Jobs report for 2025.

It all threatens to tip India Inc's hiring slump into a depression.

Follow Shritama Bose on LinkedIn and X.

CONTEXT NEWS

Reliance Industries' group headcount stood at over 419,000 at the end of March 31, 2026, the company said in its annual report for the year. The total number of employees increased by around 4% year-on-year, slower than a 16% rate of expansion in the previous financial year.

(Editing by Una Galani; Production by Ujjaini Dutta)

((For previous columns by the author, Reuters customers can click on BOSE/[email protected]))

Adds graphic and data on exports, imports in paragraphs 9-10

By Marianna Parraga and Mircely Guanipa

June 1 (Reuters) - Venezuela's oil exports rose slightly to 1.25 million barrels per day in May, its third consecutive month of increase, fueled by more cargoes to the U.S., India and Europe, shipping data showed on Monday.

Under the U.S.-supported government of interim President Delcy Rodriguez, Venezuelan crude production and exports have bounced this year as Washington eased sanctions and foreign companies expanded oil and gas projects in the OPEC nation.

The oil ministry has forecast a crude output of 1.37 million bpd by year-end, which would imply a 22% increase from the 1.12 million bpd produced in late 2025 and a number not seen since U.S. energy sanctions were first imposed in 2019.

The growth also has allowed Venezuela to resume exports to countries it had not been able to sell its oil to in years.

The volume of crude and refined products shipped from the South American country in May was 0.7% higher than in April and stood 61% above exports in the same month last year, according to the data, based on tanker movements and records from state company PDVSA. A total of 67 cargoes were exported.

The U.S. was again the first destination of Venezuela's oil with some 558,000 bpd, followed by India with 427,000 bpd and Europe with 169,000 bpd, according to the data and documents. The three regions received more volumes in May than in April.

Exports to Caribbean terminals for storage fell to some 58,000 bpd from 187,000 bpd the previous month, a signal of larger demand from refiners for Venezuela's heavy crude grades and residual fuel.

Crude exports by U.S. oil company Chevron CVX.N, PDVSA's main joint venture partner, fell to some 269,000 bpd in May from 308,000 bpd in April, while global traders including Vitol and Trafigura increased shipments from the country to 787,000 bpd, up from 691,000 bpd the previous month.

India's Reliance Industries RELI.NS, which has emerged as one of the three largest buyers of Venezuelan crude in recent months, bought cargoes directly from PDVSA and from suppliers Chevron, Vitol and Trafigura last month, according to the data.

Venezuela also exported some 288,000 metric tons of petrochemicals and oil byproducts, a decrease from the 359,000 tons of the previous month; and imported some 93,000 bpd of heavy naphtha to dilute its extra heavy oil output.

(Reporting by Marianna Parraga and Mircely Guanipa, Editing by Julia Symmes Cobb and David Gregorio)

(([email protected]; +1 713 371 7559; Reuters Messaging: @mariannaparraga))

May 29 (Reuters) - Reliance Industries Ltd RELI.NS:

• RELIANCE INDUSTRIES - MOODY'S UPGRADED CREDIT RATING FOR SENIOR UNSECURED US$ DENOMINATED FIXED RATE NOTES

Source text: [ID:]

Further company coverage: RELI.NS

(([email protected];))

May 28 (Reuters) - Reliance Industries Ltd RELI.NS:

• RELIANCE INDUSTRIES - FY 2026-27 OUTLOOK REMAINS VULNERABLE TO GEOPOLITICAL, MACRO-ECONOMIC AND POLICY RISK - ANNUAL REPORT

• RELIANCE INDUSTRIES ON O2C - IN FY 2026-27, VOLATILE PRODUCT PRICES, SUPPLY DISRUPTIONS FROM MIDDLE EAST AMONG OTHERS MAY WEIGH ON DOMESTIC DEMAND AND MARGINS

• RELIANCE INDUSTRIES CHAIRMAN: WE WILL CONTINUE TO EVALUATE STRATEGIC PATHWAYS THAT CAN BROADEN STAKEHOLDER PARTICIPATION AND SUPPORT JIO'S LONG-TERM GROWTH

Further company coverage: RELI.NS

(([email protected];;))

May 27 (Reuters) - Reliance Industries Ltd RELI.NS:

• RELIANCE INDUSTRIES - FORTY-NINTH ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING OF THE MEMBERS OF THE COMPANY WILI BE HELD ON FRIDAY, JUNE 19

Source text: ID:nBSEb72pSZ

Further company coverage: RELI.NS

(([email protected];))

NEW DELHI, May 25 (Reuters) - India's Reliance Industries RELI.NS, operator of the world's biggest refining complex, imported about 217,800 barrels per day (bpd) of Russian oil in April, down 37.9% from the month before, according to ship tracking data obtained from industry sources.

In April, Reliance also imported Iranian oil after a gap of seven years following a temporary waiver granted by Washington to help stabilise global oil prices.

Russian oil accounted for about 16.7% of Reliance's overall crude imports in April, down from 26.3% in the previous month, the data showed.

Reliance's overall monthly imports declined about 2.2% to 1.3 million bpd, the data showed, ahead of maintenance shutdown of units at one of its refineries.

NOTE: The total may not tally as numbers in tonnes have been rounded after converting them into barrels per day using a conversion factor of 7.2 barrels per tonne, to reflect the higher density crude the company buys, divided by the number of days.

Numbers for previous months have been revised.

Data also includes some crude parcels that arrived in April, but discharged in May. It also includes some parcels that arrived in March and were discharged in April.

(Reporting by Nidhi Verma; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu)

(([email protected]; X: @nidhi712;))