The all-share merger deal valued at about Rs 8,500 crore between the two Mukesh Ambani group firms, RIL and RPL, has become probably the 10th-biggest ever for the country and the first billion-dollar deal this year. As per the merger deal approved by the boards of Reliance Industries and Reliance Petroleum, shareholders will get one RIL share for every 16 RPL shares – resulting into issuance of 6.92 crore new shares by RIL. The new RIL shares to be issued as part of the merger would be worth Rs 8,478 crore (about $1.69 billion) at the current market price. RIL shares today dropped 3.15 per cent to Rs 1,225.15. This is the only billion-dollar M&A deal announced by an Indian entity so far this year. Prior to this, the biggest M&A deal for the year was Quippo Telecom's 49 per cent purchase in Tata Tele's telecom tower arm for 533 milllion dollar. […]