India Inc’s capability to hold virtual annual general meetings will face its real test on July 15 — the day Reliance Industries hosts the jamboree for its 25 lakh retail shareholders.
The oil-to-digital services conglomerate on Monday announced its 43rd shareholders meeting will be held through video conferencing (VC) or other audio visual means (OAVM).
“The 43rd AGM of the members of the company will be held on Wednesday, July 15, at 2pm through VC/OAVM in accordance with the relevant circulars issued by the ministry of corporate affairs and the Securities and Exchange Board of India,” RIL said on Monday.
Details of the agenda of the AGM will be known when RIL releases its annual report in the next few days.
Amid Covid-19 and rules on social distancing, listed companies have begun to hold their AGMs virtually. The process started with Tata Consultancy, DIC India and SBI.
The RIL AGM will put the process to test. The private sector giant has more than 25 lakh retail shareholders and its meetings at Birla Matushri auditorium in South Mumbai have generally been a full-house affair.
“With the company now holding a virtual meeting, we can expect more participation and some of the shareholders who could not travel to attend the meeting will now log in,” an analyst with a foreign brokerage said.
Sources at RIL said they were aware of the logistics challenges that would crop up with shareholders joining the meeting and asking questions. At the TCS virtual AGM, some of the 1,300 shareholders who had logged in for the meeting reported snags such as not being seen on the screen.
Reliance is finalising the platform for the virtual AGM. Connectivity issues should not be alien to Reliance whose Jio has more than 39 crore subscribers. Subsidiary Jio Platforms has launched JioMeet a video conferencing platform.
At the virtual meet, the focus will be on whether RIL will continue to monetise some of its other assets, plans to list Reliance Jio and Reliance Retail as well as Jio Platforms .
Ambani is also expected to make some announcement on a deal with Saudi Aramco in its oil-to-chemicals business.
Reliance said it has fixed July 3 as the record date to determine the members eligible to receive dividend for the financial year 2019-20. It had declared a dividend of Rs 6.50 per share for the year.
The company has concluded its rights issue recently. Sources said the dividend on the partly-paid rights share would be made on a pro-rata basis.
The promoter group which holds 50.29 per cent post rights issue is expected to get around Rs 2,000 crore in dividends.
Reliance chairman Mukesh Ambani had foregone his entire salary of Rs 15 crore for this fiscal because of the stress on the company on account of the pandemic.
For Ambani, this will mean he will earn close to Rs 4.96 crore as dividend. Following the rights issue the total holding of the promoter group has gone up to 50.29 per cent.
