Reliance Industries Ltd has drastically slashed its holdings of Unit Trust of India's Unit Scheme 1964 to a mere Rs 13 lakh as on March 31, 1997 from a whopping Rs 173.97 crore held by it at the end of the previous fiscal.
The company has also invested a hefty Rs 2879.04 crore in investment management accounts with the Union Bank of Switzerland and Credit Sui-sse First Boston. This includes Rs 361.23 crore being balance of unutilised monies raised by way of issues on or after September 13, 1996. The company invested Rs 1935.64 crore with UBS, while another Rs 943.40 crore was invested with CSFB.
RIL held 11,40,85,600 units of Rs 10 each of US-64 amounting to Rs 173.97 crore in March 1996. However, during the financial year 1996-97, the company reduced its holdings to 85,600 units only amounting to Rs 13 lakh.
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The 1996-97 annual report of Reliance mentions the units as being deposited with government authorities.
Owing to the massive offloading of the units, the total investments by Reliance in quoted units of mutual fund schemes has come down heavily from Rs 181.23 crore in March 1996 to a paltry Rs 5.61 crore in March 1997.
It has also substantially reduced its holdings of SBI Magnum Multiplier Plus 1993 units as well from 22,60,100 units amounting to Rs 2.26 crore in 1995-96 to 4,70,100 units worth Rs 48 lakh in the year ended March 1997.
However, the company's investment in units of Reliance Capital Growth Fund to the tune of Rs 5 crore remains unchanged. Reliance holds 50 lakh units of the fund.
Investments in unquoted units like the Alliance '95 Fund Units of Rs 10 each (which stood at Rs 4.85 crore in March 1996) have been totally offloaded according to the annual report.
The company has also offloaded Rs 3 crore worth of units of Rs 100 each it held of UTI's Unit Scheme 1995.
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B V Bhargava, financial institution nominee representing the Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation of India (ICICI) and M V Purohit, nominee director, General Insurance Corporation (GIC), have joined the Reliance Industries board during the year 1996-97.
While B V Bhargava has come in place of S S Betrabet of ICICI, M V Purohit has replaced Y D Patil of GIC.
The Reliance Industries board comprises chairman Dhirubhai H Ambani, vice-chairman and managing director Mukesh D Ambani and managing director Anil Ambani. Nikhil R Meswani and Hital R Meswani are the executive directors.
Other directors on the RIL board are Ramniklal H Ambani, Natvarlal H Ambani, Mansingh L Bhakta, T Ramesh U Pai and Yogendra P Trivedi.