RIL plans up to $30 bn investment in next five years

Billionaire Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries (RIL) is planning major investments, totalling up to $30 billion over next five years in its various businesses, including energy and telecom sectors.

These investments of $25-30 billion (well over Rs 1,00,000 crore) would be mainly targetted at petrochemicals, exploration and production and telecom businesses of the corporate conglomerate.

The bullish investment outlook was disclosed by RIL at an investor conference hosted by Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BofA-ML) last week.

The company expects its five main business in the next 5-10 years to be petrochemicals, refining, E&P, retail and telecom.

As per the proposed capex (capital expenditure) investment plan, RIL would invest $ 10-12 billion in petrochemicals, while spending another $ 10 billion on exploration and development of (oil and gas) discoveries already made in shale gas in India and US.

Besides, RIL would invest $4.5-4.7 billion (over Rs 20,000 crore) in telecom over the next five years, Bank of America-Merrill Lynch (BofA-ML) said in a research note about its investor conference.

RIL has already spent $2.8 billion on acquiring 4G licences and spectrum, which it got last year through acquisition of Infotel Broadband Services.

Infotel was the only entity to get pan-India licence in the auction of Broadband Wireless Access spectrum conducted by the government last year.

RIL is currently in the process of finalising arrangement with leading global technology players, service providers, infrastructure providers, application developers, device manufacturers and others for its 4G (fourth-generation) telecom service offerings.

BofA-ML also said that RIL has indicated a surge in its EBTDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation) to $15 billion by FY15, from about $6.4 billion in the last fiscal ended March 2010.

Last month, RIL reported a 28.14% rise in its third-quarter net profit at Rs 5,136 crore, helped by robust performance in its refining and petrochemicals businesses.

The turnover rose by about 6% to Rs 62,399 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2010, from Rs 58,848 crore in the year-ago period.

Commenting on the results, RIL chief Mukesh Ambani had said: "Reliance had another record quarter as both refining and petrochemical margins continued to improve and certain products recorded historic levels."

"Robust demand growth in home markets and highly competitive assets enabled Reliance to have industry leading operating rates and margins," he added.