After gaining more than 2 per cent on the opening day of the trading week, the stock of Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) closed marginally lower, in line with the benchmark index Nifty, which too closed lower on Tuesday.
The RIL stock ended marginally lower by 0.39 per cent to close at Rs 2,163.90 on BSE while on NSE it closed 0.48 per cent lower at Rs 2,163. Nifty shed 19.50 points (down 0.12 per cent) to close at 16,533.55. The RIL counter clocked a trading volume of 58.42 lakh shares and saw the percentage of deliverable quantity to the traded quantity was 53.90 per cent.
The RIL stock traded firm on Monday following news reports that the Saudi Aramco is said to be in advanced talks on up to $25 billion deal with Mukesh Ambani-led RIL.
Shares of Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) surged more than 2 per cent higher to â¹2,197 per share on the BSE in Monday's deals after a report by Bloomberg suggested that Saudi Aramco is in advanced talks for an all-stock deal to acquire a stake in Reliance's oil refining and chemicals business.
Aramco is discussing the purchase of a roughly 20 per cent stake in the Reliance unit for about $20 billion to $25 billion.
The report further added that an agreement could be reached in the coming weeks. Details of the potential transaction are still being negotiated, and talks could drag on longer or fall apart, media reports said.
Analysts said the spark in the RIL stock price on Monday is an indication that some concrete development can be expected on the deal with Aramco. If the deal materialises it will bring cheer not only to RIL investors but it can also improve market sentiment during Diwali. The stock ended marginally lower in line with the market, as it witnessed some profit booking.
RIL, a heavy-weight stock in the benchmark indices, carries a weightage of 9.63 per cent in Nifty and Sensex.
Addressing shareholders in its 44th Annual General Meeting (AGM) in June, RIL had said that it hopes to formalise its partnership with Saudi Aramco by the end of 2021. Meanwhile, Yasir Al-Rumayyan, chairman of Saudi Aramco and the Governor of the Public
Investment Fund joined the board of Reliance Industries as an independent director.
The oil-to-retail-to-telecom conglomerate had in 2019 announced its interest to sell a 20 per cent stake in the company’s flagship chemicals and refining business to a Saudi Arabian oil company in a deal valued at $15 billion. The deal was to conclude by March 2020 but was delayed and then talks revived this year.
Speaking at the RIL AGM earlier this year, chairman and managing director Mukesh Ambani had said that "as an important part of this vision of achieving accelerated growth, we look forward to welcoming Saudi Aramco as a strategic partner in our O2C business." Despite several challenges due to covid-19, "we have made substantial progress in the past year in our discussions", he added.
Last fiscal, RIL carved out its oil-to-chemicals business into a separate entity, to facilitate the onboarding of strategic partners like Aramco.
The O2C undertaking of the company comprises of refining, petrochemicals, fuel retail & aviation fuel (majority interest only) and bulk wholesale marketing businesses together with its assets and liabilities.
