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Who is Yasir Al-Rumayyan?
Yasir Al-Rumayyan is the Chairman of the state oil company Saudi Aramco and is a business personality who is Governor of the Public Investment Fund (PIF), a sovereign wealth fund in Saudi Arabia.
On June 24, Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) said he will join their board of directors as an Independent director.
About Yasir Al-Rumayyan
After completing his study at Harvard Business School, he started his career at Saudi Hollandi Bank. From 2011 to 2015, he was the CEO of Saudi Fransi Capital, the investment banking arm of Banque Saudi Fransi.
The 51-year-old also served on the nine-member board of directors of the Saudi Stock Exchange in 2014.
He resigned from the bank in 2015 and took up a role to look at projects to revamp the royal court. Rumayyan also resigned from the board of directors of the stock exchange.
The PIF under Al-Rumayyan
In 2015, he became the managing director of the PIF, with a mandate to seek international investments with the potential for knowledge and technology transfer to the Saudi economy.
Citing the importance of urban mobility and local employment in support of the Saudi Vision 2030 economic reform programme, the PIF invested $3.5 billion in Uber Technologies in June 2016.
In the same year, Al-Rumayyan joined the board of Saudi Aramco as part of a move toward closer cooperation between Aramco and PIF in restructuring the economy.
In October 2016, the PIF went on to invest $45 billion in the SoftBank Vision Fund, a technology-focused investment vehicle.
Continuing the overseas portfolio, the PIF in May 2017 invested with a $20 billion contribution to a joint US infrastructure fund with Blackstone.
Under Al-Rumayyan's supervision, the PIF announced that it would aim to increase its assets under management to over $400 billion and create more than 20,000 new jobs by 2020.
To establish a core banking group as the PIF continued to expand activities and develop into one of the most prominent users of banking services, the wealth fund in 2018 raised $11 billion through an international syndicated loan facility.
Al-Rumayyan in 2018 kickstarted Future Investment Initiative to diversify the economy and localise industries, where the Fund aimed to increase international assets to 50 per cent from 10 per cent by 2030.
Joining RIL Board
Speaking at the 44th annual general meeting of RIL, Mukesh Ambani offered a board seat to further its globalisation plans.
Announcing the appointment, Ambani said the RIL is looking forward to welcoming Saudi Aramco as a strategic partner in our oil to chemicals business.
In June 2020, the PIF had invested Rs 11,367 crore for a 2.32 per cent stake in Jio Platforms.
According to RIL officials, Al-Rumayyan can be an independent director because the stake buy deal is for a subsidiary of RIL and not the parent company. He will be the first non-Indian director on the RIL Board.
Aramco-RIL deal
In August 2019, Reliance Industries - which operates the world's largest refinery, had signed a letter of intent with top oil exporter Saudi Aramco, for the latter to potentially acquire a 20 per cent stake in its oil-to-chemicals arm. The $15 billion deal was expected to be completed by March 2020 but was delayed.
However, in November 2021, RIL withdrew its application with the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) for segregating its oil-to-chemicals (O2C) business, following a mutual decision with Saudi Aramco to re-evaluate the stake sale of the O2C arm. The move came in light of Reliance's new energy business plans and the ''evolving nature of its business portfolio'', as per a regulatory filing to the stock exchanges.
However, Reliance said that Yasir Al-Rumayyan's appointment to the company's board has no connection to its O2C deal with Saudi Aramco.
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