No wrongdoing on IPOs: Reliance
Tuesday, 14 December 2004, 20:30 IST
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MUMBAI: Reliance Industries, India's largest private sector firm, Monday rubbished reports that its chairman was directly linked to two companies that made huge investments in buying shares of a leading public sector unit. "During the last few days, a well-orchestrated campaign of disinformation has been unleashed about Reliance Industries, Reliance Infocomm and its chairman and managing director Mukesh Ambani," said a company statement. Reliance is in the midst of a bitter ownership feud between Mukesh and his younger brother Anil Ambani, the vice chairman of the group. It was reported Monday that the two companies which made huge investments in the initial public offering of energy giant Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) were linked to Mukesh Ambani. The statement said the attempt to describe the two companies as belonging to Mukesh Ambani are "baseless and an exercise in misinterpretation and distortion of facts". "Smart Entrepreneur Solutions Private Limited and Smart Infosolutions Private Limited, which applied for the IPO, are not unknown companies," said the statement. "Smart Entrepreneur Solutions employed over 1,000 people and Smart Infosolutions around 3,000 people. By no stretch of imagination can these be described as little or unknown. "These companies do not belong to Mukesh Ambani," the statement maintained. Reliance said there was no mystery about the sources from which these companies obtained funds to subscribe to the ONGC public issue. According to the statement, Reliance Communications Infrastructure Limited (RCIL), a Reliance group subsidiary, owns the two companies. "RCIL did not borrow from any banks or financial institutions to provide funds to two of its companies for subscribing to the IPO," it said. "In fact, RCIL provided funds from its own sources. It is libellous to say that the money was diverted from Reliance Infocomm to these companies." The statement said there was no loss to Reliance Industries or its shareholders. In fact, both of them will be benefited from these investments, it added. "Various innuendos, invectives and allegations camouflaged in the news report as questions are irrelevant and tendentious, because these two companies are not owned by Mukesh Ambani. "There is no private gain for Mukesh Ambani, as insinuated in the newspaper reports."
Source: IANS
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