With 33 deals, FY19 was the busiest year for RIL's M&A team in a decade

It is churn time for oil-to-telecom conglomerate Reliance Industries (RIL). As the company divests from some core segments and invests in consumer-facing ones, it dealt with 33 merger and acquisitions (M&As), investment and joint ventures in the last financial year. This is the busiest its M&A team has been in a decade.

According to data available with Bloomberg, RIL reported 33 such activities — some complete and some pending in 2018-2019 financial year (FY19) — valued at $2.9 billion. In FY18, the company had reported 16 such deals. 

Reflective of the conglomerate’s ambition to turn into a consumer-driven business, most of the acquisitions in the last financial year were for its digital, retail, or related verticals. The list includes two major buy-outs — majority stakes in DEN Networks and Hathway Cable & Datacom for a total of Rs 5,230 crore and interest in Alok Industries through the National Com­pany Law Tribunal route. 

Part of the company’s ‘to sell’ list are its stakes in Cambay basin divested to Sun Petrochemicals for an undisclosed amount, announced in July 2018 and sale of its pipeline infrastructure to Brookfield Infrastructure Investment Trust (InvIT) in March this year for Rs 13,000 crore. 

RIL’s M&A activity has been on a steady rise since FY18, the second highest in the past one decade. The trend for FY18 was similar — where the company divested from some core business assets and purchased consumer-facing ones. In FY18, for instance, RIL divested its stake in its US shale gas assets announced in October 2017. In July 2017, it announced an investment in Balaji Telefilms.

In the first month of the current financial year, RIL announced two deals — sale of a significant stake in six companies which own its very large ethane carriers for an undisclosed amount and a Rs 700-crore investment in Artificial Intelligence (AI) start-up Haptik. 

With reports emerging on a possible stake sale for the company’s refining and petrochemicals business and a purchase of stake in global toy seller Hamleys, RIL’s M&A team may be staring at yet another busy year. The company has refused to comment on both deals so far.