It seems that 2020 didn’t really go bad for everyone as with the new normal setting in and with thunderous storms and a raging virus wreaking havoc across the world, digital communication has been the major game for people across the planet to stay connected.
In the fad of staying on the top of digitalization, India has handed an unrivaled sway to Mukesh Ambani who may even overtake Mark Zuckerberg in the forthcoming year to become one of the highest-paid individuals across the face of the planet.
Though it is still a far swing, the stage is all set to host the battle of the millennium as Mukesh Ambani, chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) will be going toe to toe against Mark Zuckerberg, owner of Facebook and Bernard Arnault, chairman of France-based LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton, the world’s largest manufacturer of luxury goods.
According to Bloomberg Billionaire Index, Zuckerberg currently holds a wealth of $85 billion while Arnault is staying strong at $112 billion. Ambani is just $4 billion shy of making the cut for toppling Zuckerberg from the list.
Dated December 31, 2014, RIL constituted 2.9 percent of the total BSE listed companies and the market-cap of Rs 98.36 trillion. Since then the company has witnessed a five-fold rise from Rs 2.88 trillion. With the stock exponentially increasing since March 2020, RIL has bolstered itself in the S&P BSE Sensex. The starting of 2020 saw the index’s weight to be 10 percent while the mid-year witnessed the weight to increase itself to 16 percent.
RIL is surmised to have multiple impetuses in place that will aid them in their sale in the retail venture and also a potential sale of oil-to-chemicals (O2C) business segment at an even lower valuation. This supposition was professed by the analysts at BNP Paribas.
Amit Pramod Shah, an analyst, mapping the company’s growth at BNP Paribas, mentioned in a note on July 24, citing, “We believe FY22 will see a rebound in refining/chemical margins which will aid earnings as global growth stabilizes. We expect refining margins of $9.5/barrel for FY22 and increasing for FY23 as – after a transitionary FY22 – growth should return for both gasoline/jet fuel. Chemical business should be more stable going into FY22 and as global economies revive should once again see improving spreads.”
On July 15, 2020, when the RIL AGM was held, Ambani was ranked eighth in the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a daily ranking of the world’s richest people. Within three days of that ranking, he climbed three places higher up the ladder.
According to the market beholders, the proceeds in RIL share are expected to continue following the easy money conditions, high amount of liquidity in the market, and possible listing of RIL’s Jio platforms in the US markets. This recent development will help Ambani to breathe harder on the neck of Zuckerberg, Arnault and Bill Gates. Once he successfully slings himself n the top two, he will be battling the long mile between him and Jeff Bezos of Amazon who currently boasts of a net worth of $179 billion.
This rise in the line of Ambani has rekindled an earlier incident where Samsung managed to attain such exponential growth in the first decade of the 21st century that helped them command 15 percent of the total market cap of the Seoul Stock Exchange.
One of the primary reasons for Ambani to rise higher up the rungs of the ladder is the backing by the Indian companies. The analysts were heard quoting, “Indian MFs will have to jack up their holding by 4 percent in line with RIL’s weightage”.