MUMBAI: Asia’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani, spent the last two decades transforming the stodgy petrochemicals giant he inherited into a global empire spanning telecoms, retail, cricket and luxury fashion.
His youngest son Anant marries childhood sweetheart Radhika Merchant in a lavish three-day wedding in Mumbai beginning Friday, an opportunity for the tycoon to showcase his place at the top of India’s corporate hierarchy.
The occasion has been preceded by several extravagant parties boasting a guest list drawn from the world’s political, financial and cultural elite.
Guests have included Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Microsoft’s Bill Gates and ex-US president Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka, with performances from pop stars Rihanna, Katy Perry and Justin Bieber.
With a net worth estimated at $123 billion by Forbes – and one of Asia’s most powerful people, Ambani has for years been emblematic of India’s growing economic clout.
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Ambani was born in 1957 and raised in Mumbai, where his father Dhirubhai started a successful yarn trading business that earned him the nickname the “polyester prince”.
By the time his son joined the family business in 1981 after dropping out of an MBA programme at Stanford University, the company – now known as Reliance – was expanding fast.
Dhirubhai entrusted the 24-year-old with building the firm’s first mega petrochemical plant in India, reportedly telling him: “I am not going to really hold your hand… or mollycoddle you through this project.
“If you can make it, very good, if you cannot, we will find somebody else,” he added.
“My father really took a chance on me,” Ambani recalled in a 2002 interview with talk show host Simi Garewal.
The former gas station attendant was grooming both Mukesh and his younger son Anil to take over the rags-to-riches empire when he died suddenly in 2002 without leaving a will.
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Battling brothers
His death sparked a bitter feud between the brothers, eventually forcing their mother Kokilaben to broker a deal that carved up the multibillion-dollar conglomerate.
Mukesh inherited the old-world businesses spanning oil, gas and petrochemicals, while his younger brother secured control of the power utility, telecoms and finance arms.
When the split was finalised in 2006, many analysts thought Anil – athletic, tech-savvy and married to a former Bollywood star – had got the better end of the deal.
Mukesh, by contrast, was perceived as a media-shy stickler for detail and a traditional family man, whose wife Nita was chosen for him by his parents and who reportedly consulted astrologers before launching any new enterprise.
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But by 2019, there was little doubt that Mukesh’s businesses had thrived while his brother’s had tanked.
The triumph was especially sweet since it came at the cost of Anil’s telecoms business Reliance Communications, with Mukesh sparking a brutal price war in the sector when he launched his own Reliance Jio mobile network in 2016.
In four years, he turned Jio into the country’s biggest mobile operator, clobbering the competition with aggressive discounts including free voice calls for life and ultra-cheap data.
Reliance Communications, like several other telecoms companies, saw profits shrink, with Anil forced into insolvency in 2019 when he had to seek the help of his older brother to pay off his debts to avoid jail.
‘Modern-day maharajah’
Mukesh Ambani’s ambitions did not stop at telecoms. He tapped into Jio’s huge subscriber base to launch e-commerce services in 2020, challenging global giants Amazon and Walmart.
His dizzying array of retail partnerships includes storied fashion brands such as Burberry, Armani and Jimmy Choo.
In February, Reliance and Walt Disney announced the merger of their Indian media businesses, a move that will create an $8.5 billion powerhouse with 750 million viewers across the country.
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He also made inroads into the world of sport.
Reliance owns the Mumbai Indians cricket team, which has won the lucrative Indian Premier League tournament five times.
As Ambani’s wealth grew, so did his public profile, with his new home – a 27-storey luxury Mumbai building that reportedly cost more than $1 billion to erect – prompting critics to dub him “a modern-day maharajah”.
His daughter Isha’s lavish wedding at a lakeside palace saw performances by Beyonce and dozens of Bollywood stars, drawing criticism for its extravagance, with Indian media reports estimating a bill of up to $100 million.
Ambani has been critical of Western-style philanthropy that encourages the rich to donate part of their fortune.
“I fundamentally believe that that kind of charity is by and large a disempowering tool,” he said in 2011. “It increases dependency and reduces initiative and enterprise.”
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