Succession at Reliance nearly complete, Mukesh Ambani, 69, says at shareholders meeting

The handover of day-to-day operations of Reliance Industries Ltd to the third generation of the founding Ambani family is almost complete, Chairman Mukesh Ambani said at the company’s 49th annual general meeting (AGM).

He said Ambani’s three children, Isha (34), Akash (34) and Anant (31), who have been on the board of Reliance Industries for three years, will handle the company’s consumer, technology and energy businesses respectively.

Ambani, 69, said the new generation of supporters has the “founder’s mentality” he had when he took over 25 years ago. They will also have the guidance and mentorship of him and the company’s other executives, thus allaying potential concerns from shareholders about the transition. He also added that the company has trained nearly 500 leaders in their 30s and 40s to help future generations.

“Even as I continue to provide hands-on leadership, the generational handover of day-to-day management at Reliance is almost complete,” Ambani said in his speech.

Although carefully worded, investors are eagerly following the Reliance chairman’s AGM speech because it is one of the rare occasions when he speaks directly to shareholders on camera.

Ambani dismissed possible concerns about whether the group’s businesses will take different paths in the next generation: “While they lead individual business sectors, they also work for the holistic growth of everything under the Reliance ecosystem. They are three bodies, one soul. Their soul is Reliance. One indivisible Reliance.”

More than two decades ago, the Reliance group split into two separate business groups following the sudden death of its founder Dhirubhai Ambani.

Shares of Reliance Industries on Friday closed 1.39% lower on the BSE. ₹1,309.35 compared to a 0.78% decline in the benchmark Sensex. It has lost almost 17% since the beginning of 2026. The Reliance scrip lost between 1% and 2.3% in four of the previous five AGMs and has posted an outstanding gain of 1.64% in 2024.

“There have been talks of splitting the three sectors (retail, energy and telecom) for a long time and this is likely to happen now that Jio’s IPO DRHP is over. But as of now, this split does not appear to be a legal separation of business and ownership between the brothers. In other words, whether through the parent company or some other structure, the Ambanis plan to keep legal ownership in common. Certainly not now, but in the long run, this could unsettle the markets. Mr. Ambani is likely to be wary of such a possibility as any dispute would jeopardize operations across all sectors.” wants to make it clear that it does not exist and the Reliance group has proven that the brothers can stay under one legal umbrella, operate autonomously and be successful,” said Ajit Joshi, chartered accountant and professor of finance at LN Welingkar Institute of Management Development and Research.

We aim for the stock markets and the stars

The biggest AGM announcement was that of the initial public offering of Jio Platforms Ltd, which operates the country’s largest mobile service provider, Jio. Ambani said third-generation promoters are leading Jio’s IPO process.

At the meeting, Akash Ambani said Jio was considering a plan to compete with American trillionaire Elon Musk’s Starlink, which has its own fleet of low-earth orbit communications satellites. “Jio has connected India by land. Now we need to connect India by sky.”

Simultaneously, he said, the telco is also considering leasing satellite capacity from global constellation providers to accelerate its entry into the satellite internet market. For this purpose, he said Jio is already building ground station infrastructure in India.

On the artificial intelligence (AI) front, the company’s artificial intelligence arm Reliance Intelligence plans to operationalize 120 megawatts of data center capacity at Jamnagar in Gujarat by the end of 2026, the younger Ambani said. Reliance is setting a date for having functional AI data center targets for the first time, three years after it first announced its targets at its 2023 AGM.

Akash Ambani said that in addition to having the infrastructure that runs artificial intelligence, Reliance Intelligence is also working on artificial intelligence applications in partnership with global companies. This includes an AI voice agent that will be paired with Jio’s voice search service that works in major Indian languages. While a demo was showcased at the AGM, the actual service will be available only to Jio subscribers later this year, he said.

Delays in the desert

While Jio is literally aiming for the stars, Reliance’s clean energy ambitions in Jamnagar and the deserts of Kutch continue to be marred by delays. The company’s solar cell and module facility in Jamnagar is operational but is far from its target of increasing annual capacity to 20 GW by 2026 as stated in 2022. There is also no definitive timeline for completing the backward integration with the production of wafers, ingots and polysilicon, the precursors of cells.

Reliance is setting up a renewable energy farm spread across 550,000 acres of Kutch desert land. In 2022, it had aimed to have 20GW of renewable energy capacity by 2025, but the latest guidance was revised to 120MW by the end of 2026 before being increased.

Similar delays exist for Reliance’s 40 GWh capacity energy storage battery facility, which is expected to be operational by the end of 2026. The company said that all equipment of the facility has arrived at the site.

Anant Ambani said at the AGM that the new energy business will start contributing meaningfully to Reliance Industries’ financial performance from FY27.

Isha Ambani said Reliance’s retail business plans to set up a manufacturing platform covering beverages, daily necessities, fresh fruits and vegetables, electronics and ready-made garments. He said the company will also set up an export platform to control India’s current account deficit. However, he did not provide details on how these platforms would work.

Meanwhile, Reliance Consumer Products Ltd, its FMCG division, has a stated goal of ₹He said generating revenue of 1 trillion by FY30 remains a priority. Company’s income announced ₹22,000 crore in FY26, which was double the previous year.