Reliance non-executive directors get a raise

The directors of Reliance Industries (RIL) are going to be richer from this year. The company has proposed to disburse Rs 1 crore per annum ...

The directors of Reliance Industries (RIL) are going to be richer from this year. The company has proposed to disburse Rs 1 crore per annum to its non-executive directors for ‘their time devoted and contribution made’. The company’s resolution for this commission will come up at its annual general meeting (AGM) of shareholders on August 3.

RIL’s shareholders will be asked to ratify a resolution which says a commission of Rs 1 crore per annum in such proportion as may be decided by the board of directors to non-executive directors for a period of five years. The commission should not exceed more than 1 per cent of the net profits, says RIL in its Annual Report to the shareholders.

As the company made a net profit of Rs 7,572 crore in fiscal ended March 2005, RIL can disburse as much as Rs 75.7 crore to its non-executive directors. There are seven non-executive directors: lawyers M.L. Bhakta and Y.P. Trivedi, Ramniklal H. Ambani, Former RBI governor S. Venkitaramanan, M. P. Modi, Prof Ashok Misra and Dr D.V. Kapur.

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‘‘The size of the company has grown tremendously over the years. Multiple products being manufactured at various locations have substantially increased the activities and operations of the company,’’ it said, justifying the new commission.

Payment of commission will be in addition to the sitting fee for attending meetings of the board and committees.

The board of Reliance cleared this proposal on April 27.

On the same day, the Reliance board gave a clean chit — on the basis of the corp governance panel’s recommendations — to the company on the accusations made by Mukesh’s younger brother Anil Ambani on the matters of corporate governance and transparency.

The company would also increase the number of its auditors to match the growth in size the company has achieved over the years. It has proposed to appoint Deloitte Haskins and Sells, chartered accountants, along with the retiring auditors Chaturvedi & Shah as auditors of the company from the scheduled AGM on August 3, 2005 for one year, the company said.

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On the Rs 2,999 crore buyback programme announced in December 2004, it said the company bought 28.69 lakh shares at an average price of Rs 521.38 per share of Rs 10 each for consideration of Rs 149.61 crore.

Capex of Rs 5,093 crore in 2004-05

MUMBAI: Reliance Industries Ltd incurred a capital expenditure of Rs 5,093 crore during 2004-05, primarily on exploration and production, retail marketing network and expansion of petrochemicals business, RIL said in its annual report. However, the fixed assets of the company were reduced by Rs 2,240 crore, which included certain assets acquired by RIL for marketing of Infocomm services and as part of retail infrastructure, integral to the Infocomm business. ENS