Reliance Industries to hive off oil, chemicals business into separate unit for sale to Aramco
Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), India’s largest company, on Thursday said its board has approved hiving off its USD 75 billion worth oil-to-chemicals business into a separate division to enable the sale of 20 per cent stake in the unit to Saudi national oil company Aramco. The hiving off will be subject to the approval of the National Company Law Tribunal. After the approval, the oil-to-chemical (O2C) business will become a separate vertical with independent balance sheet just like the conglomerate’s digital arm, Jio Platforms. RIL had organised all its digital businesses including Reliance Jio that has 388 million telecom subscribers, into Jio Platforms. It last week agreed to sell a 9.99 per cent stake in Jio Platforms to Facebook Inc for USD 5.7 billion.
RIL Board “approved a Scheme of Arrangement for transfer of O2C Undertaking of the company to Reliance O2C Ltd as a going concern on slump sale basis for a lump sum consideration equal to the income tax net worth of the O2C Undertaking as on the appointed date of the Scheme,” it said in its fourth-quarter earnings statement.
