Investors will gain long term: Anil Ambani

Reliance Power IPO today

MUMBAI: Investors across the globe with an exposure in the Indian markets will be watching Anil Ambani when he strikes the gong at 9.55 am on Monday at the Rotunda hall in the Bombay Stock Exchange. It will herald the debut of Reliance Power Ltd in the premier stock bourses.

In a conversation with DNA, Anil Ambani, chairman of R-ADA group appeared unfazed by the recent bearish onslaught. The man who could have been the richest Indian if only the market kept its equilibrium attributes the tremors simply to “events of the global capital markets”. 

But he doesn’t miss taking a swipe at his detractors. He darkly alludes to “selective speculative players and certain vested industrial investors who are deeply concerned at the continuing success of our group and its unparalleled value creation for its over 7 million investors in just around 30 months”.

He leaves it at that preferring not to take any names. He wants the conversation to revolve around the success of his IPO, which has now spurred him to aspire for another IPO for group company Reliance Infratel. He attributes the success of the Reliance Power IPO to investors’ confidence in the growth potential of the Indian economy, the Indian power sector and the unparalleled 28,000 MW power portfolio that RPL owns for development.

Asked if the recent market meltdown would affect the listing price of Reliance Power, he says these are “normal cyclical phases in global capital markets”.  

India driven by economic liberalisation cannot remain insulated from global forces. “I am extremely confident that all our long term investors will reap good returns on their investments in shares of Reliance Power, regardless of short-term fluctuations, which in any case affect all stocks, and not just Reliance Power,” he reasoned.

With two IPOs – Wockhardt Hospitals and Emaar MGF withdrawing hastily, fingers were pointed at the aggressive pricing of the Reliance Power IPO as the villain. After all, the power generation company has no operating assets. Anil Ambani will have none of it. He argues that, “the fact that the IPO received commitments of nearly Rs7,50,000 crore (US$190 billion) setting several new global records is the greatest testimony that the IPO was attractively priced.”

Doomsayers in the market believe Reliance Power will find it difficult to sustain its IPO price? “This is too narrow a view,” he argues. “To say that nearly 500 sophisticated institutional investors from across the globe, and 5 million retail investors, were all taken in by hype, to an extent that they committed a staggering nearly Rs7,50,000 crore, is an unfair comment on their collective intelligence and understanding.”
 
On allegations that grey market premiums got Reliance Power such a humungous response, Anil Ambani says: “This is again a coloured view. The lack of depth, and unreliability, of the so-called grey market is well known to all investors,” he says.

The marathoner who is good at managing money is looking at the long term:  “The journey has just begun.”