At the outset, it appears that Anil is walking away with a bigger chunk of the business. However, we must consider the value of Reliance Infocomm equity in RIL. RIL holds over 40% in the telecom venture valued at $14 billion but the business still does not throw up huge cash flows like the petrochem segment. It appears that Anil has been given the cash generating business to forego his share in the RIL's telecom business which is still unlisted. In any M&A or de-merger, business are not judged on the basis of sales but on the future discounted cash flows from each business. The petrochem business throws up cash of Rs 5000 crore every year, for the telecom business it will Rs 4000 crore in two years. Now, impute the value of the shares of Infocomm in favour of Mukesh, the carve up appears fairer. Surely, we can trust ICICI's project evaluation skills in this.
Arriving at the carve up took a few months, implementing it may take much longer. Since it involves many legal formalities, dividing Reliance overnight will be just impossible. You can expect a series of de-mergers and other complex transactions that will finally give the brothers their share of businesses.
