Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) had reached USD 100b market capitalisation mark in Oct 2007 as well. That time dollar was equivalent of Rs. 39.60. The company has regained that position after over 10 years in July 2018. Now the dollar is equal to Rs. 68.75 (swinging between Rs. 68 to Rs. 69).

The journey of the company which added Rs. 2 lac cr Rupees to its market capitalisation during a single year (2017) has been arduous. Now the company holds top positions in whatever the area they operate in. Their areas of presence are: 1. Petroleum (from exploration to importing crude, refining and exporting where they operate the largest single place refinery in the world) 2. Natural Gas, 3. Petrochemicals (RIL operates the largest Paraxylene plant in the world), 4. Textiles, 5. Retail (the largest retiler in India), 6. Telecommunications (through a subsidiary Jio) and 7. Media (Network 18 which has such popular sites as Moneycontrol.com, TV channels such as Colors and ETV) and 8. Miscellaneous others. For the year 2017-18, the revenue of the company was over USD 64 b (Rs. 430,731 cr). It has ranked 203rd on Fortune 500 Global List. It is the largest exporter from India with 8% export share.

Its founder Dhirubhai Ambani (alongwith Champaklal Damani as its co founder) started the company in the year 1966 (then USD 130 and today USD 15) with a capital of Rs. 1,000 and with a single employee. Today, the number of employees stand at over 1,87,000.

The company had its IPO (Initial Public Offering) in 1977. The issue was oversubscribed by 7 times. It is a proven fact that shareholders’ wealth has doubled two and a half years since the IPO forty years back. Forty years back the enterprise value of the company was below USD 5 m. Today, its enterprise value stands at over USD 250b.

Friday, the 13 is superstitiously considered an ominous day in the calendar but the date has done wonders to the company and its promoters. While RIL crossed capitalisation of USD 100 b, Mukesh Ambani, its CMD became the richest person in Asia leaving Jack Ma of Alibaba at the second place. Mukesh Ambani holds 44.7% stake in the company and his wealth not touches USD 45 b as against USD 44 b of Jack Ma.