World Ranking : 126
Reliance Industries Limited is the largest private sector conglomerate company headquartered at Mumbai, India. The company is largest by annual turnover of US$58.5 billion and market capitalization of US$78.2 billion for the fiscal year ending in March 2011 making it one of the largest India's private sector companies, being ranked at 264th position in the Fortune Global 500 and at the 126th position in the Forbes Global 2000 list.
Reliance was founded by the Indian industrialist Dhirubhai Ambani in 1966. Ambani has been a pioneer in introducing financial instruments like fully convertible debentures to the Indian stock markets. Ambani was one of the first entrepreneurs to draw retail investors to the stock markets. Critics allege that the rise of Reliance Industries to the top slot in terms of market capitalization is largely due to Dhirubhai's ability to manipulate the levers of a controlled economy to his advantage.
Reliance Industries Limited has a wide range of products from petroleum products, petrochemicals, to garments, Reliance Retail has entered into the fresh foods market as Reliance Fresh and launched a non-veg chain called Delight Reliance Retail and NOVA Chemicals have signed a letter of intent to make energy-efficient structures.
Reliance Industry is the worlds largest polyester producer and as a result one of the largest producers of polyester waste in the world. In order to deal with this large amount of waste they had to create a way to recycle the waste. They operate the largest polyester recycling center that uses the polyester waste as a filling and stuffing. They use this process to develop a strong recycling process which won them a reward in the Team Excellence competition.
Though the company's petrochemicals, refining, and oil and gas-related operations form the core of its business, however, other segment of the company includes textile, retail business, telecommunications and special economic zone development. After severe differences between the founder's two sons, Mukesh Ambani and Anil Ambani, the group was divided between them in 2006. In September 2008, Reliance Industries was the only Indian firm featured in the Forbes's list of "world's 100 most respected companies". In 2010, it stood at 13th position in the Platts Top 250 Global Energy Company Rankings.