The Reliance stock has gained 23 percent over the past two months and was one of the top five gainers during this period. It was one of the drivers that helped the BSE Sensex surpass the 60,000 milestone in September
Shares of oil retail-to-telecom major Reliance Industries surged to a record high on October 6 after attracting healthy buying interest for about two months. The stock hit a market capitalisation of Rs 17.46 lakh crore following several months of consolidation.
Reliance shares climbed to a fresh high of Rs 2,623 on the BSE from the previous day’s close of Rs 2,609.10. The stock was trading at Rs 2,576.10, down 1.26 percent, at 1417 hours, and its partly paid-up shares fell 1.61 percent to Rs 1,930.50.
The company’s market capitalisation touched Rs 16,62,835.93 crore at the record high price, while its partly paid-up stock had a market cap of Rs 83,159.83 crore at its new high of Rs 1,971.85. The combined market capitalisation stood at Rs 17,45,995.77 crore.
The Reliance stock has gained 23 percent over the past two months and it was one of the top five gainers during this period, after Bajaj Finserv, NTPC, Bajaj Finance and HCL Technologies. It was also one of the drivers that helped the BSE Sensex surpass the 60,000 milestone and the Nifty 50 to jump near the 18,000 mark in September.
Reliance Industries said October 2 it invested Rs 7.43 crore ($1 million) in cash in 1 million equity shares of $1 each of Reliance International (RINL), a newly incorporated wholly owned subsidiary in Abu Dhabi Global Market, United Arab Emirates.
This company, which is yet to start business operations, will undertake activities related to trading of crude oil, petroleum products, petrochemicals and agricultural commodities, among others, the company said in its BSE filing.
Reliance Jio, the company’s telecom unit, and Google said in September that they had made considerable progress towards launching JioPhone Next, a first-of-its-kind device featuring an optimised operating system based on Android and Play Store.
“Both companies have begun testing JioPhone Next with a limited set of users for further refinement and are actively working to make it available more widely in time for the Diwali festive season. This additional time will also help mitigate the current industry-wide, global semiconductor shortages,” Reliance had said.
In September, subsidiary Reliance Strategic Business Ventures acquired 22.8 million shares of Strand Life Sciences, a genomic testing company, for Rs 393 crore.
“A further investment of up to Rs 160 crore is expected to be completed by March 2023. The total investment will translate into around 80.3 percent of equity share capital in Strand on a fully diluted basis,” Reliance said on September 3.
Strand, with a turnover of Rs 88.7 crore and profit of Rs 8.48 crore in FY21, is a pioneer of genomic testing in India with bioinformatics software and clinical research solutions to healthcare providers including clinicians, hospitals, medical devices manufacturers and pharmaceutical companies.
“This investment is part of the group’s digital health initiatives to foster affordable access to world-class technology and innovation-led healthcare ecosystem in India,” Reliance said.
Additionally, subsidiary Reliance Retail Ventures acquired sole control of Just Dial on September 1, now holding 40.98 percent in the local search engine.
Disclosure:Reliance Industries Ltd, which owns Jio, is the sole beneficiary of Independent Media Trust which controls Network18 Media & Investments Ltd.
