Mukesh Ambani Indian businessman History

Mukesh Ambani

Indian businessman

Actions

Also known as: Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambani

Written by 

Jeannette L. Nolen

Fact-checked by 

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Last Updated: Apr 16, 2024 • Article History

Table of Contents

Recent News

Apr. 16, 2024, 4:01 AM ET (Reuters)

BlackRock doubles down on India bet, signs new JV with Ambani's Jio Financial

Apr. 14, 2024, 7:27 AM ET (The Hindu)

IAF stepped in to handle air activity at Jamnagar airport during Ambani’s pre-wedding bash

Apr. 12, 2024, 2:15 AM ET (MSN)

RIIL Dividend 2024 News: Latest update from Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industrial Infrastructure

Apr. 4, 2024, 4:46 AM ET (MSN)

Forbes richest list 2024: Mukesh Ambani tops in India, Gautam Adani at 2. Check top 10 names here

Apr. 3, 2024, 3:56 AM ET (The Indian Express)

Forbes World’s Billionaires List 2024: Mukesh Ambani is richest Indian, country now has 200 billionaires

Show Less 

Mukesh Ambani (born April 19, 1957, Aden, Yemen) is an Indian business mogul who serves as chairman and managing director of the Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), a multinational conglomerate with businesses across sectors such as petrochemicals, energy, textiles, retail, and telecommunications. With a net worth of $117.5 billion as of March 4, 2024, Ambani is Asia’s wealthiest person. He ranked among the top 10 wealthiest people in the world on Forbes magazine’s annual list of billionaires in 2021, 2022, and 2023.

Ambani is one of four children of renowned Indian industrialist Dhirubhai Ambani, who first worked as a gas station attendant in Aden, Yemen. Because of the increasingly unstable political climate in Aden, where Mukesh Ambani was born, the family relocated in 1958 to the Bhuleshwar neighborhood of Bombay (now Mumbai), where they lived in a chawl (a communal building that commonly features low-rent two-room apartments). That same year Dhirubhai Ambani and a cousin founded the Reliance Commercial Corporation, which grew into RIL from a commodities-trading business that they initially operated out of a one-room rental space. Education and early professional life

Mukesh Ambani earned a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of Bombay (now the University of Mumbai) and subsequently pursued a master’s degree in business administration from Stanford University. However, he left the program in 1981 to join the family business, where he worked to diversify the company, venturing into a vast array of areas, including communications, infrastructure, petrochemicals, petroleum refining, polyester fibers, and gas and oil production.

The Ambani brothers’ feuds

Following Dhirubhai Ambani’s death in 2002, Mukesh Ambani and his brother, Anil Ambani, assumed joint leadership of the Reliance companies. However, the brothers’ feuds over control prompted their mother, Kokilaben Ambani, to split Reliance’s assets via a noncompetition agreement (2006–10) under which Mukesh Ambani assumed control of the gas, oil, and petrochemicals units as RIL under the umbrella of the Reliance Group. Anil Ambani gained control of the telecommunications, power generation, and financial services.

Expansion of RIL

Mukesh Ambani has been credited with commissioning the globe’s largest start-up petroleum refinery at Jamnagar, Gujarat state, in 1999, as well as spearheading the creation of several state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities that vastly increased RIL’s production capabilities. Another refinery was added close to the first Jamnagar refinery in 2008. Two years earlier Ambani led the development of Reliance Retail—a retail network comprising both physical and online stores, claimed by Reliance to be India’s largest retailer. Reliance Retail’s customer base reached 249 million in the 2023 fiscal year.

Ambani’s multiple business successes include the purchase of the Mumbai Indians, an Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket team, through a Reliance subsidiary in 2008. The Mumbai Indians were the only IPL team to grow in brand value in 2020 despite empty stadiums in a pandemic-hit world. It retained its position as the most valuable IPL brand in 2021, 2022, and 2023.

In 2010 the two Reliance groups owned by Mukesh Ambani and Anil Ambani mutually scrapped the noncompetition agreement signed in 2006, and later that decade Mukesh Ambani established Jio Platforms, a subsidiary of RIL dedicated to telecommunications and e-commerce. The Jio brand offered India’s first nationwide network for 4G broadband service in 2016. By August 2023, Jio’s customer base had crossed 450 million, and its 5G customers numbered more than 50 million. About this time, Ambani declared that Jio will be among the first companies globally to develop 6G capabilities.

February 2024 saw Ambani’s RIL enter into an agreement with Indian media company Viacom18 and American entertainment giant Disney to create a joint venture, valued at $8.5 billion, forming one of India’s leading media companies. This joint venture aims to provide entertainment and sports coverage to more than 750 million viewers and will have exclusive rights to distribute Disney productions in India. Nita Ambani, Mukesh Ambani’s wife, is set to become the chair of the joint venture.

 

Subscribe

HomeGames & QuizzesHistory & SocietyScience & TechBiographiesAnimals & NatureGeography & TravelArts & CultureMoneyVideos

Contents

HomeSports & RecreationOther Sports

Arts & Culture

Mukesh Ambani

Indian businessman

Actions

Also known as: Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambani

Written by 

Jeannette L. Nolen

Fact-checked by 

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Last Updated: Apr 16, 2024 • Article History

Table of Contents

Recent News

Apr. 16, 2024, 4:01 AM ET (Reuters)

BlackRock doubles down on India bet, signs new JV with Ambani's Jio Financial

Apr. 14, 2024, 7:27 AM ET (The Hindu)

IAF stepped in to handle air activity at Jamnagar airport during Ambani’s pre-wedding bash

Apr. 12, 2024, 2:15 AM ET (MSN)

RIIL Dividend 2024 News: Latest update from Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industrial Infrastructure

Apr. 4, 2024, 4:46 AM ET (MSN)

Forbes richest list 2024: Mukesh Ambani tops in India, Gautam Adani at 2. Check top 10 names here

Apr. 3, 2024, 3:56 AM ET (The Indian Express)

Forbes World’s Billionaires List 2024: Mukesh Ambani is richest Indian, country now has 200 billionaires

Show Less 

Mukesh Ambani (born April 19, 1957, Aden, Yemen) is an Indian business mogul who serves as chairman and managing director of the Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), a multinational conglomerate with businesses across sectors such as petrochemicals, energy, textiles, retail, and telecommunications. With a net worth of $117.5 billion as of March 4, 2024, Ambani is Asia’s wealthiest person. He ranked among the top 10 wealthiest people in the world on Forbes magazine’s annual list of billionaires in 2021, 2022, and 2023.

 

Mukesh Ambani

See all media

Category: Arts & Culture

In full:

 

Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambani

Born:

 

April 19, 1957, Aden, Yemen (age 67)

Founder:

 

Mumbai Indians

Notable Family Members:

 

father Dhirubhai Ambani

On the Web:

 

Famous Entrepreneurs - Mukesh Ambani (Apr. 16, 2024)

See all related content →

Ambani is one of four children of renowned Indian industrialist Dhirubhai Ambani, who first worked as a gas station attendant in Aden, Yemen. Because of the increasingly unstable political climate in Aden, where Mukesh Ambani was born, the family relocated in 1958 to the Bhuleshwar neighborhood of Bombay (now Mumbai), where they lived in a chawl (a communal building that commonly features low-rent two-room apartments). That same year Dhirubhai Ambani and a cousin founded the Reliance Commercial Corporation, which grew into RIL from a commodities-trading business that they initially operated out of a one-room rental space.

 

Britannica Quiz

American Sports Nicknames

Education and early professional life

Mukesh Ambani earned a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of Bombay (now the University of Mumbai) and subsequently pursued a master’s degree in business administration from Stanford University. However, he left the program in 1981 to join the family business, where he worked to diversify the company, venturing into a vast array of areas, including communications, infrastructure, petrochemicals, petroleum refining, polyester fibers, and gas and oil production.

The Ambani brothers’ feuds

Following Dhirubhai Ambani’s death in 2002, Mukesh Ambani and his brother, Anil Ambani, assumed joint leadership of the Reliance companies. However, the brothers’ feuds over control prompted their mother, Kokilaben Ambani, to split Reliance’s assets via a noncompetition agreement (2006–10) under which Mukesh Ambani assumed control of the gas, oil, and petrochemicals units as RIL under the umbrella of the Reliance Group. Anil Ambani gained control of the telecommunications, power generation, and financial services.

Expansion of RIL

Mukesh Ambani has been credited with commissioning the globe’s largest start-up petroleum refinery at Jamnagar, Gujarat state, in 1999, as well as spearheading the creation of several state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities that vastly increased RIL’s production capabilities. Another refinery was added close to the first Jamnagar refinery in 2008. Two years earlier Ambani led the development of Reliance Retail—a retail network comprising both physical and online stores, claimed by Reliance to be India’s largest retailer. Reliance Retail’s customer base reached 249 million in the 2023 fiscal year.

Ambani’s multiple business successes include the purchase of the Mumbai Indians, an Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket team, through a Reliance subsidiary in 2008. The Mumbai Indians were the only IPL team to grow in brand value in 2020 despite empty stadiums in a pandemic-hit world. It retained its position as the most valuable IPL brand in 2021, 2022, and 2023.

Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content.Subscribe Now

In 2010 the two Reliance groups owned by Mukesh Ambani and Anil Ambani mutually scrapped the noncompetition agreement signed in 2006, and later that decade Mukesh Ambani established Jio Platforms, a subsidiary of RIL dedicated to telecommunications and e-commerce. The Jio brand offered India’s first nationwide network for 4G broadband service in 2016. By August 2023, Jio’s customer base had crossed 450 million, and its 5G customers numbered more than 50 million. About this time, Ambani declared that Jio will be among the first companies globally to develop 6G capabilities.

February 2024 saw Ambani’s RIL enter into an agreement with Indian media company Viacom18 and American entertainment giant Disney to create a joint venture, valued at $8.5 billion, forming one of India’s leading media companies. This joint venture aims to provide entertainment and sports coverage to more than 750 million viewers and will have exclusive rights to distribute Disney productions in India. Nita Ambani, Mukesh Ambani’s wife, is set to become the chair of the joint venture.

Family and residence

 

Antilia, Mukesh Ambani's residence

Mukesh Ambani's Antilia is one of the most expensive homes in the world.

Mukesh Ambani is married to Nita Ambani, an educationist, a businessperson, and a champion of women’s and children’s rights. She is a member of the International Olympic Committee; founder and chair of Reliance Foundation, RIL’s philanthropic arm; and manager of the high-value IPL team the Mumbai Indians. The billionaire couple lives in Antilia, their luxury home along South Mumbai’s Altamount Road, one of the most expensive addresses in the world. In fact, Antilia is one of the most expensive homes in the world. This ostentatious 400,000-square-foot (37,000-square-meter) residence has 27 floors, a temple, a salon, a private movie theater, a garage that can accommodate 168 cars, a car service station, and a snow room to help the family stay cool in the humid Mumbai summers.

 

Together Mukesh and Nita Ambani have three children—twins, Akash and Isha, and a younger son, Anant. The three Ambani children joined Reliance as board directors in August 2023. Akash Ambani heads Jio Infocomm; Isha Ambani is tasked with driving the expansion of Reliance Retail into newer formats and areas; and Anant Ambani is leading the Reliance Group’s energy and materials businesses, helping Reliance on its path to becoming a net-zero carbon company by 2035. Anant Ambani’s upcoming marriage to Radhika Merchant, board director of her father Viren Merchant’s Encore Healthcare, in July 2024 and the pre-wedding festivities that started in early March have grabbed headlines in India. The pre-wedding celebrations have featured a performance by pop star Rihanna, and the guest list includes the likes of Mark Zuckerberg and wife Priscilla Chan, Bill Gates, Sundar Pichai, Bollywood stars Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan, and Indian billionaires Gautam Adani and Kumar Mangalam Birla.

Other achievements

Mukesh Ambani was chosen in 2006 to cochair the India Economic Summit of the World Economic Forum (WEF)—an international organization made up of some of the world’s prominent business leaders, politicians, policymakers, scholars, philanthropists, trade unionists, and representatives of nongovernmental organizations that convenes annually to discuss global commerce, economic development, political concerns, and important social issues. In 2010 he was elected to serve as a member of the WEF Foundation Board.

Ambani was ranked number one among Indian CEOs and number two globally in the Brand Guardianship Index by Brand Finance for two consecutive years, 2023 and 2024. He also topped India Today’s “The High & Mighty 2023: 50 Power People” list. That same year he was among the top 10 in The Indian Express’s list of the most powerful Indians.

Ambani became India’s first rupee trillionaire in 2007, and that year The Economic Times newspaper and the news agency Press Trust of India simultaneously named him the world’s richest man. In January 2024 Forbes India named Ambani, with a net worth at the time of $96.4 billion, the richest person in Asia. He was featured in Forbes magazine’s annual billionaires list as one of the 10 richest people in the world in 2021, 2022, and 2023.

 

Subscribe

HomeGames & QuizzesHistory & SocietyScience & TechBiographiesAnimals & NatureGeography & TravelArts & CultureMoneyVideos

Contents

HomeSports & RecreationOther Sports

Arts & Culture

Mukesh Ambani

Indian businessman

Actions

Also known as: Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambani

Written by 

Jeannette L. Nolen

Fact-checked by 

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Last Updated: Apr 16, 2024 • Article History

Table of Contents

Recent News

Apr. 16, 2024, 4:01 AM ET (Reuters)

BlackRock doubles down on India bet, signs new JV with Ambani's Jio Financial

Apr. 14, 2024, 7:27 AM ET (The Hindu)

IAF stepped in to handle air activity at Jamnagar airport during Ambani’s pre-wedding bash

Apr. 12, 2024, 2:15 AM ET (MSN)

RIIL Dividend 2024 News: Latest update from Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industrial Infrastructure

Apr. 4, 2024, 4:46 AM ET (MSN)

Forbes richest list 2024: Mukesh Ambani tops in India, Gautam Adani at 2. Check top 10 names here

Apr. 3, 2024, 3:56 AM ET (The Indian Express)

Forbes World’s Billionaires List 2024: Mukesh Ambani is richest Indian, country now has 200 billionaires

Show Less 

Mukesh Ambani (born April 19, 1957, Aden, Yemen) is an Indian business mogul who serves as chairman and managing director of the Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), a multinational conglomerate with businesses across sectors such as petrochemicals, energy, textiles, retail, and telecommunications. With a net worth of $117.5 billion as of March 4, 2024, Ambani is Asia’s wealthiest person. He ranked among the top 10 wealthiest people in the world on Forbes magazine’s annual list of billionaires in 2021, 2022, and 2023.

 

Mukesh Ambani

See all media

Category: Arts & Culture

In full:

 

Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambani

Born:

 

April 19, 1957, Aden, Yemen (age 67)

Founder:

 

Mumbai Indians

Notable Family Members:

 

father Dhirubhai Ambani

On the Web:

 

Famous Entrepreneurs - Mukesh Ambani (Apr. 16, 2024)

See all related content →

Ambani is one of four children of renowned Indian industrialist Dhirubhai Ambani, who first worked as a gas station attendant in Aden, Yemen. Because of the increasingly unstable political climate in Aden, where Mukesh Ambani was born, the family relocated in 1958 to the Bhuleshwar neighborhood of Bombay (now Mumbai), where they lived in a chawl (a communal building that commonly features low-rent two-room apartments). That same year Dhirubhai Ambani and a cousin founded the Reliance Commercial Corporation, which grew into RIL from a commodities-trading business that they initially operated out of a one-room rental space.

 

Britannica Quiz

American Sports Nicknames

Education and early professional life

Mukesh Ambani earned a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of Bombay (now the University of Mumbai) and subsequently pursued a master’s degree in business administration from Stanford University. However, he left the program in 1981 to join the family business, where he worked to diversify the company, venturing into a vast array of areas, including communications, infrastructure, petrochemicals, petroleum refining, polyester fibers, and gas and oil production.

The Ambani brothers’ feuds

Following Dhirubhai Ambani’s death in 2002, Mukesh Ambani and his brother, Anil Ambani, assumed joint leadership of the Reliance companies. However, the brothers’ feuds over control prompted their mother, Kokilaben Ambani, to split Reliance’s assets via a noncompetition agreement (2006–10) under which Mukesh Ambani assumed control of the gas, oil, and petrochemicals units as RIL under the umbrella of the Reliance Group. Anil Ambani gained control of the telecommunications, power generation, and financial services.

Expansion of RIL

Mukesh Ambani has been credited with commissioning the globe’s largest start-up petroleum refinery at Jamnagar, Gujarat state, in 1999, as well as spearheading the creation of several state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities that vastly increased RIL’s production capabilities. Another refinery was added close to the first Jamnagar refinery in 2008. Two years earlier Ambani led the development of Reliance Retail—a retail network comprising both physical and online stores, claimed by Reliance to be India’s largest retailer. Reliance Retail’s customer base reached 249 million in the 2023 fiscal year.

Ambani’s multiple business successes include the purchase of the Mumbai Indians, an Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket team, through a Reliance subsidiary in 2008. The Mumbai Indians were the only IPL team to grow in brand value in 2020 despite empty stadiums in a pandemic-hit world. It retained its position as the most valuable IPL brand in 2021, 2022, and 2023.

Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content.Subscribe Now

In 2010 the two Reliance groups owned by Mukesh Ambani and Anil Ambani mutually scrapped the noncompetition agreement signed in 2006, and later that decade Mukesh Ambani established Jio Platforms, a subsidiary of RIL dedicated to telecommunications and e-commerce. The Jio brand offered India’s first nationwide network for 4G broadband service in 2016. By August 2023, Jio’s customer base had crossed 450 million, and its 5G customers numbered more than 50 million. About this time, Ambani declared that Jio will be among the first companies globally to develop 6G capabilities.

February 2024 saw Ambani’s RIL enter into an agreement with Indian media company Viacom18 and American entertainment giant Disney to create a joint venture, valued at $8.5 billion, forming one of India’s leading media companies. This joint venture aims to provide entertainment and sports coverage to more than 750 million viewers and will have exclusive rights to distribute Disney productions in India. Nita Ambani, Mukesh Ambani’s wife, is set to become the chair of the joint venture.

Family and residence

 

Antilia, Mukesh Ambani's residence

Mukesh Ambani's Antilia is one of the most expensive homes in the world.

Mukesh Ambani is married to Nita Ambani, an educationist, a businessperson, and a champion of women’s and children’s rights. She is a member of the International Olympic Committee; founder and chair of Reliance Foundation, RIL’s philanthropic arm; and manager of the high-value IPL team the Mumbai Indians. The billionaire couple lives in Antilia, their luxury home along South Mumbai’s Altamount Road, one of the most expensive addresses in the world. In fact, Antilia is one of the most expensive homes in the world. This ostentatious 400,000-square-foot (37,000-square-meter) residence has 27 floors, a temple, a salon, a private movie theater, a garage that can accommodate 168 cars, a car service station, and a snow room to help the family stay cool in the humid Mumbai summers.

 

Mukesh Ambani's family

From left: Mukesh Ambani with Radhika Merchant, Anant Ambani (younger son), Nita Ambani (wife), Isha Ambani (daughter), Anand Piramal (Isha Ambani's husband), Shloka Mehta (Akash Ambani's wife), and Akash Ambani (elder son) at Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant's engagement ceremony, January 19, 2023, Mumbai.(more)

Together Mukesh and Nita Ambani have three children—twins, Akash and Isha, and a younger son, Anant. The three Ambani children joined Reliance as board directors in August 2023. Akash Ambani heads Jio Infocomm; Isha Ambani is tasked with driving the expansion of Reliance Retail into newer formats and areas; and Anant Ambani is leading the Reliance Group’s energy and materials businesses, helping Reliance on its path to becoming a net-zero carbon company by 2035. Anant Ambani’s upcoming marriage to Radhika Merchant, board director of her father Viren Merchant’s Encore Healthcare, in July 2024 and the pre-wedding festivities that started in early March have grabbed headlines in India. The pre-wedding celebrations have featured a performance by pop star Rihanna, and the guest list includes the likes of Mark Zuckerberg and wife Priscilla Chan, Bill Gates, Sundar Pichai, Bollywood stars Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan, and Indian billionaires Gautam Adani and Kumar Mangalam Birla.

Other achievements

Mukesh Ambani was chosen in 2006 to cochair the India Economic Summit of the World Economic Forum (WEF)—an international organization made up of some of the world’s prominent business leaders, politicians, policymakers, scholars, philanthropists, trade unionists, and representatives of nongovernmental organizations that convenes annually to discuss global commerce, economic development, political concerns, and important social issues. In 2010 he was elected to serve as a member of the WEF Foundation Board.

Ambani was ranked number one among Indian CEOs and number two globally in the Brand Guardianship Index by Brand Finance for two consecutive years, 2023 and 2024. He also topped India Today’s “The High & Mighty 2023: 50 Power People” list. That same year he was among the top 10 in The Indian Express’s list of the most powerful Indians.

Ambani became India’s first rupee trillionaire in 2007, and that year The Economic Times newspaper and the news agency Press Trust of India simultaneously named him the world’s richest man. In January 2024 Forbes India named Ambani, with a net worth at the time of $96.4 billion, the richest person in Asia. He was featured in Forbes magazine’s annual billionaires list as one of the 10 richest people in the world in 2021, 2022, and 2023.

Jeannette L. NolenThe Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Contents

HomePolitics, Law & GovernmentWorld LeadersOther Politicians

History & Society

Anil Ambani

Indian businessman

Actions

Also known as: Anil Dhirubhai Ambani

Written and fact-checked by 

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Article History

Table of Contents

Recent News

Apr. 16, 2024, 7:24 AM ET (MSN)

Anil Ambani's Reliance Naval eyes RELISTING! Shares extinguished, new ones issued as part of takeover by Swan ...

Anil Ambani (born June 4, 1959, Bombay [now Mumbai], Maharashtra state, India) Indian business mogul and chairman of Reliance Group.

 

Anil Ambani

See all media

Category: History & Society

In full:

 

Anil Dhirubhai Ambani

Born:

 

June 4, 1959, Bombay [now Mumbai], Maharashtra state, India (age 64)

Title / Office:

 

Rajya Sabha (2004-2006), India

Notable Family Members:

 

father Dhirubhai Ambani

 

brother Mukesh Ambani

See all related content →

Ambani completed a B.Sc. at Kishinchand Chellaram College in Bombay (now Mumbai) and later studied at the University of Pennsylvania, where he received an M.B.A. from its prestigious Wharton School in 1983. He returned to India and joined his father, Dhirubhai Ambani, in carrying out his duties as chief executive officer. After his father suffered a stroke in 1985, Anil Ambani took on day-to-day management of the company’s financial relationships under his father’s oversight.

He and his brother, Mukesh Ambani, assumed joint leadership of the Reliance companies after their father’s death in 2002. However, the brothers’ feuding over control prompted their mother, Kokilaben Ambani, to split Reliance’s assets via a noncompetition agreement in 2005. Mukesh Ambani assumed control of Reliance Industries Limited and its more traditional units, while Anil Ambani gained control of the telecommunications, power generation, and financial services units through a demerger. After amending the noncompetition agreement in 2010, the brothers agreed in 2013 to share their companies’ telecommunication networks in their first major cooperative effort since 2005.

In the political sphere, Anil Ambani was elected in 2004 to represent Uttar Pradesh state in the Rajya Sabha, the upper chamber of India’s legislature. He resigned in 2006 amid public controversy over members of parliament holding offices of profit. The controversy had forced the resignation of Sonia Gandhi, leader of the Indian National Congress, from the lower chamber only days earlier. Although Ambani was not accused of any wrongdoing amid the controversy, he cited his “firm view” that public servants should remain free from the possibility of controversy.

 

Subscribe

HomeGames & QuizzesHistory & SocietyScience & TechBiographiesAnimals & NatureGeography & TravelArts & CultureMoneyVideos

Contents

HomeSports & RecreationOther Sports

Arts & Culture

Mukesh Ambani

Indian businessman

Actions

Also known as: Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambani

Written by 

Jeannette L. Nolen

Fact-checked by 

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Last Updated: Apr 16, 2024 • Article History

Table of Contents

Recent News

Apr. 16, 2024, 4:01 AM ET (Reuters)

BlackRock doubles down on India bet, signs new JV with Ambani's Jio Financial

Apr. 14, 2024, 7:27 AM ET (The Hindu)

IAF stepped in to handle air activity at Jamnagar airport during Ambani’s pre-wedding bash

Apr. 12, 2024, 2:15 AM ET (MSN)

RIIL Dividend 2024 News: Latest update from Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industrial Infrastructure

Apr. 4, 2024, 4:46 AM ET (MSN)

Forbes richest list 2024: Mukesh Ambani tops in India, Gautam Adani at 2. Check top 10 names here

Apr. 3, 2024, 3:56 AM ET (The Indian Express)

Forbes World’s Billionaires List 2024: Mukesh Ambani is richest Indian, country now has 200 billionaires

Show Less 

Mukesh Ambani (born April 19, 1957, Aden, Yemen) is an Indian business mogul who serves as chairman and managing director of the Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), a multinational conglomerate with businesses across sectors such as petrochemicals, energy, textiles, retail, and telecommunications. With a net worth of $117.5 billion as of March 4, 2024, Ambani is Asia’s wealthiest person. He ranked among the top 10 wealthiest people in the world on Forbes magazine’s annual list of billionaires in 2021, 2022, and 2023.

 

Mukesh Ambani

See all media

Category: Arts & Culture

In full:

 

Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambani

Born:

 

April 19, 1957, Aden, Yemen (age 67)

Founder:

 

Mumbai Indians

Notable Family Members:

 

father Dhirubhai Ambani

On the Web:

 

Famous Entrepreneurs - Mukesh Ambani (Apr. 16, 2024)

See all related content →

Ambani is one of four children of renowned Indian industrialist Dhirubhai Ambani, who first worked as a gas station attendant in Aden, Yemen. Because of the increasingly unstable political climate in Aden, where Mukesh Ambani was born, the family relocated in 1958 to the Bhuleshwar neighborhood of Bombay (now Mumbai), where they lived in a chawl (a communal building that commonly features low-rent two-room apartments). That same year Dhirubhai Ambani and a cousin founded the Reliance Commercial Corporation, which grew into RIL from a commodities-trading business that they initially operated out of a one-room rental space.

 

Britannica Quiz

American Sports Nicknames

Education and early professional life

Mukesh Ambani earned a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of Bombay (now the University of Mumbai) and subsequently pursued a master’s degree in business administration from Stanford University. However, he left the program in 1981 to join the family business, where he worked to diversify the company, venturing into a vast array of areas, including communications, infrastructure, petrochemicals, petroleum refining, polyester fibers, and gas and oil production.

The Ambani brothers’ feuds

Following Dhirubhai Ambani’s death in 2002, Mukesh Ambani and his brother, Anil Ambani, assumed joint leadership of the Reliance companies. However, the brothers’ feuds over control prompted their mother, Kokilaben Ambani, to split Reliance’s assets via a noncompetition agreement (2006–10) under which Mukesh Ambani assumed control of the gas, oil, and petrochemicals units as RIL under the umbrella of the Reliance Group. Anil Ambani gained control of the telecommunications, power generation, and financial services.

Expansion of RIL

Mukesh Ambani has been credited with commissioning the globe’s largest start-up petroleum refinery at Jamnagar, Gujarat state, in 1999, as well as spearheading the creation of several state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities that vastly increased RIL’s production capabilities. Another refinery was added close to the first Jamnagar refinery in 2008. Two years earlier Ambani led the development of Reliance Retail—a retail network comprising both physical and online stores, claimed by Reliance to be India’s largest retailer. Reliance Retail’s customer base reached 249 million in the 2023 fiscal year.

Ambani’s multiple business successes include the purchase of the Mumbai Indians, an Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket team, through a Reliance subsidiary in 2008. The Mumbai Indians were the only IPL team to grow in brand value in 2020 despite empty stadiums in a pandemic-hit world. It retained its position as the most valuable IPL brand in 2021, 2022, and 2023.

Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content.Subscribe Now

In 2010 the two Reliance groups owned by Mukesh Ambani and Anil Ambani mutually scrapped the noncompetition agreement signed in 2006, and later that decade Mukesh Ambani established Jio Platforms, a subsidiary of RIL dedicated to telecommunications and e-commerce. The Jio brand offered India’s first nationwide network for 4G broadband service in 2016. By August 2023, Jio’s customer base had crossed 450 million, and its 5G customers numbered more than 50 million. About this time, Ambani declared that Jio will be among the first companies globally to develop 6G capabilities.

February 2024 saw Ambani’s RIL enter into an agreement with Indian media company Viacom18 and American entertainment giant Disney to create a joint venture, valued at $8.5 billion, forming one of India’s leading media companies. This joint venture aims to provide entertainment and sports coverage to more than 750 million viewers and will have exclusive rights to distribute Disney productions in India. Nita Ambani, Mukesh Ambani’s wife, is set to become the chair of the joint venture.

Family and residence

 

Antilia, Mukesh Ambani's residence

Mukesh Ambani's Antilia is one of the most expensive homes in the world.

Mukesh Ambani is married to Nita Ambani, an educationist, a businessperson, and a champion of women’s and children’s rights. She is a member of the International Olympic Committee; founder and chair of Reliance Foundation, RIL’s philanthropic arm; and manager of the high-value IPL team the Mumbai Indians. The billionaire couple lives in Antilia, their luxury home along South Mumbai’s Altamount Road, one of the most expensive addresses in the world. In fact, Antilia is one of the most expensive homes in the world. This ostentatious 400,000-square-foot (37,000-square-meter) residence has 27 floors, a temple, a salon, a private movie theater, a garage that can accommodate 168 cars, a car service station, and a snow room to help the family stay cool in the humid Mumbai summers.

 

Mukesh Ambani's family

From left: Mukesh Ambani with Radhika Merchant, Anant Ambani (younger son), Nita Ambani (wife), Isha Ambani (daughter), Anand Piramal (Isha Ambani's husband), Shloka Mehta (Akash Ambani's wife), and Akash Ambani (elder son) at Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant's engagement ceremony, January 19, 2023, Mumbai.(more)

Together Mukesh and Nita Ambani have three children—twins, Akash and Isha, and a younger son, Anant. The three Ambani children joined Reliance as board directors in August 2023. Akash Ambani heads Jio Infocomm; Isha Ambani is tasked with driving the expansion of Reliance Retail into newer formats and areas; and Anant Ambani is leading the Reliance Group’s energy and materials businesses, helping Reliance on its path to becoming a net-zero carbon company by 2035. Anant Ambani’s upcoming marriage to Radhika Merchant, board director of her father Viren Merchant’s Encore Healthcare, in July 2024 and the pre-wedding festivities that started in early March have grabbed headlines in India. The pre-wedding celebrations have featured a performance by pop star Rihanna, and the guest list includes the likes of Mark Zuckerberg and wife Priscilla Chan, Bill Gates, Sundar Pichai, Bollywood stars Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan, and Indian billionaires Gautam Adani and Kumar Mangalam Birla.

Other achievements

Mukesh Ambani was chosen in 2006 to cochair the India Economic Summit of the World Economic Forum (WEF)—an international organization made up of some of the world’s prominent business leaders, politicians, policymakers, scholars, philanthropists, trade unionists, and representatives of nongovernmental organizations that convenes annually to discuss global commerce, economic development, political concerns, and important social issues. In 2010 he was elected to serve as a member of the WEF Foundation Board.

Ambani was ranked number one among Indian CEOs and number two globally in the Brand Guardianship Index by Brand Finance for two consecutive years, 2023 and 2024. He also topped India Today’s “The High & Mighty 2023: 50 Power People” list. That same year he was among the top 10 in The Indian Express’s list of the most powerful Indians.

Ambani became India’s first rupee trillionaire in 2007, and that year The Economic Times newspaper and the news agency Press Trust of India simultaneously named him the world’s richest man. In January 2024 Forbes India named Ambani, with a net worth at the time of $96.4 billion, the richest person in Asia. He was featured in Forbes magazine’s annual billionaires list as one of the 10 richest people in the world in 2021, 2022, and 2023.

Jeannette L. NolenThe Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Contents

HomePolitics, Law & GovernmentWorld LeadersOther Politicians

History & Society

Anil Ambani

Indian businessman

Actions

Also known as: Anil Dhirubhai Ambani

Written and fact-checked by 

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Article History

Table of Contents

Recent News

Apr. 16, 2024, 7:24 AM ET (MSN)

Anil Ambani's Reliance Naval eyes RELISTING! Shares extinguished, new ones issued as part of takeover by Swan ...

Anil Ambani (born June 4, 1959, Bombay [now Mumbai], Maharashtra state, India) Indian business mogul and chairman of Reliance Group.

 

Anil Ambani

See all media

Category: History & Society

In full:

 

Anil Dhirubhai Ambani

Born:

 

June 4, 1959, Bombay [now Mumbai], Maharashtra state, India (age 64)

Title / Office:

 

Rajya Sabha (2004-2006), India

Notable Family Members:

 

father Dhirubhai Ambani

 

brother Mukesh Ambani

See all related content →

Ambani completed a B.Sc. at Kishinchand Chellaram College in Bombay (now Mumbai) and later studied at the University of Pennsylvania, where he received an M.B.A. from its prestigious Wharton School in 1983. He returned to India and joined his father, Dhirubhai Ambani, in carrying out his duties as chief executive officer. After his father suffered a stroke in 1985, Anil Ambani took on day-to-day management of the company’s financial relationships under his father’s oversight.

He and his brother, Mukesh Ambani, assumed joint leadership of the Reliance companies after their father’s death in 2002. However, the brothers’ feuding over control prompted their mother, Kokilaben Ambani, to split Reliance’s assets via a noncompetition agreement in 2005. Mukesh Ambani assumed control of Reliance Industries Limited and its more traditional units, while Anil Ambani gained control of the telecommunications, power generation, and financial services units through a demerger. After amending the noncompetition agreement in 2010, the brothers agreed in 2013 to share their companies’ telecommunication networks in their first major cooperative effort since 2005.

In the political sphere, Anil Ambani was elected in 2004 to represent Uttar Pradesh state in the Rajya Sabha, the upper chamber of India’s legislature. He resigned in 2006 amid public controversy over members of parliament holding offices of profit. The controversy had forced the resignation of Sonia Gandhi, leader of the Indian National Congress, from the lower chamber only days earlier. Although Ambani was not accused of any wrongdoing amid the controversy, he cited his “firm view” that public servants should remain free from the possibility of controversy.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia BritannicaThis article was most recently revised and updated by Adam Zeidan.

Contents

HomePolitics, Law & GovernmentBusinesspeople & Entrepreneurs

History & Society

Dhirubhai Ambani

Indian businessman

Actions

Also known as: Dhirajlal Hirachand Ambani

Written and fact-checked by 

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Article History

Table of Contents

Dhirubhai Ambani (born December 28, 1932, Chorwad, Gujarat, British India—died July 6, 2002, Mumbai, India) Indian industrialist who was the founder of Reliance Industries, a giant petrochemicals, communications, power, and textiles conglomerate that was the biggest exporter in India and the first privately owned Indian company in the Fortune 500.

 

Ambani, Dhirubhai

See all media

Category: History & Society

In full:

 

Dhirajlal Hirachand Ambani

Born:

 

December 28, 1932, Chorwad, Gujarat, British India

Died:

 

July 6, 2002, Mumbai, India (aged 69)

Founder:

 

Reliance Industries Limited

Notable Family Members:

 

son Mukesh Ambani

See all related content →

Ambani was the third of five children born to a village schoolteacher and his wife, and he grew up in a family of modest means. At the age of 17, he migrated to the British colony of Aden to join his brother. He started his career as a clerk at A. Besse & Co., which in the 1950s was the largest transcontinental trading firm east of Suez. There he learned trading, accounting, and other business skills. In 1958 Ambani returned to India and settled in Bombay (now Mumbai).

Ambani began a business trading in spices in the late 1950s, calling his nascent venture Reliance Commercial Corporation. He soon expanded into other commodities, following a strategy of offering higher-quality products and accepting smaller profits than his competitors. His business grew quickly. After deciding that the corporation had gone as far as it could with commodities, Ambani turned his attention to synthetic textiles. He made his first foray into backward integration with the opening of the first Reliance textile mill in 1966. Continuing a policy of backward integration and diversification, he gradually shaped Reliance into a petrochemicals behemoth and later added plastics and power generation to the company’s businesses.

In 1977 Ambani took Reliance public after nationalized banks refused to finance him. His agility in navigating a stodgy economy and crippling government regulations and bureaucracy led to allegations of political manipulation, corruption, and engineered raids on competitors, but investor confidence in Reliance remained unshaken—owing in part to the handsome dividends the company offered, as well as the founder’s charisma and vision. Ambani was credited with introducing the stock market to the average investor in India, and thousands attended the Reliance annual general meetings, which were sometimes held in a sports stadium, with many more watching on television.

Ambani handed over the day-to-day running of the company to his sons, Mukesh Ambani and Anil Ambani, in the mid-1980s but continued to oversee the company until shortly before his death in 2002.

 

Subscribe

HomeGames & QuizzesHistory & SocietyScience & TechBiographiesAnimals & NatureGeography & TravelArts & CultureMoneyVideos

Contents

HomeSports & RecreationOther Sports

Arts & Culture

Mukesh Ambani

Indian businessman

Actions

Also known as: Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambani

Written by 

Jeannette L. Nolen

Fact-checked by 

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Last Updated: Apr 16, 2024 • Article History

Table of Contents

Recent News

Apr. 16, 2024, 4:01 AM ET (Reuters)

BlackRock doubles down on India bet, signs new JV with Ambani's Jio Financial

Apr. 14, 2024, 7:27 AM ET (The Hindu)

IAF stepped in to handle air activity at Jamnagar airport during Ambani’s pre-wedding bash

Apr. 12, 2024, 2:15 AM ET (MSN)

RIIL Dividend 2024 News: Latest update from Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industrial Infrastructure

Apr. 4, 2024, 4:46 AM ET (MSN)

Forbes richest list 2024: Mukesh Ambani tops in India, Gautam Adani at 2. Check top 10 names here

Apr. 3, 2024, 3:56 AM ET (The Indian Express)

Forbes World’s Billionaires List 2024: Mukesh Ambani is richest Indian, country now has 200 billionaires

Show Less 

Mukesh Ambani (born April 19, 1957, Aden, Yemen) is an Indian business mogul who serves as chairman and managing director of the Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), a multinational conglomerate with businesses across sectors such as petrochemicals, energy, textiles, retail, and telecommunications. With a net worth of $117.5 billion as of March 4, 2024, Ambani is Asia’s wealthiest person. He ranked among the top 10 wealthiest people in the world on Forbes magazine’s annual list of billionaires in 2021, 2022, and 2023.

 

Mukesh Ambani

See all media

Category: Arts & Culture

In full:

 

Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambani

Born:

 

April 19, 1957, Aden, Yemen (age 67)

Founder:

 

Mumbai Indians

Notable Family Members:

 

father Dhirubhai Ambani

On the Web:

 

Famous Entrepreneurs - Mukesh Ambani (Apr. 16, 2024)

See all related content →

Ambani is one of four children of renowned Indian industrialist Dhirubhai Ambani, who first worked as a gas station attendant in Aden, Yemen. Because of the increasingly unstable political climate in Aden, where Mukesh Ambani was born, the family relocated in 1958 to the Bhuleshwar neighborhood of Bombay (now Mumbai), where they lived in a chawl (a communal building that commonly features low-rent two-room apartments). That same year Dhirubhai Ambani and a cousin founded the Reliance Commercial Corporation, which grew into RIL from a commodities-trading business that they initially operated out of a one-room rental space.

 

Britannica Quiz

American Sports Nicknames

Education and early professional life

Mukesh Ambani earned a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of Bombay (now the University of Mumbai) and subsequently pursued a master’s degree in business administration from Stanford University. However, he left the program in 1981 to join the family business, where he worked to diversify the company, venturing into a vast array of areas, including communications, infrastructure, petrochemicals, petroleum refining, polyester fibers, and gas and oil production.

The Ambani brothers’ feuds

Following Dhirubhai Ambani’s death in 2002, Mukesh Ambani and his brother, Anil Ambani, assumed joint leadership of the Reliance companies. However, the brothers’ feuds over control prompted their mother, Kokilaben Ambani, to split Reliance’s assets via a noncompetition agreement (2006–10) under which Mukesh Ambani assumed control of the gas, oil, and petrochemicals units as RIL under the umbrella of the Reliance Group. Anil Ambani gained control of the telecommunications, power generation, and financial services.

Expansion of RIL

Mukesh Ambani has been credited with commissioning the globe’s largest start-up petroleum refinery at Jamnagar, Gujarat state, in 1999, as well as spearheading the creation of several state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities that vastly increased RIL’s production capabilities. Another refinery was added close to the first Jamnagar refinery in 2008. Two years earlier Ambani led the development of Reliance Retail—a retail network comprising both physical and online stores, claimed by Reliance to be India’s largest retailer. Reliance Retail’s customer base reached 249 million in the 2023 fiscal year.

Ambani’s multiple business successes include the purchase of the Mumbai Indians, an Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket team, through a Reliance subsidiary in 2008. The Mumbai Indians were the only IPL team to grow in brand value in 2020 despite empty stadiums in a pandemic-hit world. It retained its position as the most valuable IPL brand in 2021, 2022, and 2023.

Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content.Subscribe Now

In 2010 the two Reliance groups owned by Mukesh Ambani and Anil Ambani mutually scrapped the noncompetition agreement signed in 2006, and later that decade Mukesh Ambani established Jio Platforms, a subsidiary of RIL dedicated to telecommunications and e-commerce. The Jio brand offered India’s first nationwide network for 4G broadband service in 2016. By August 2023, Jio’s customer base had crossed 450 million, and its 5G customers numbered more than 50 million. About this time, Ambani declared that Jio will be among the first companies globally to develop 6G capabilities.

February 2024 saw Ambani’s RIL enter into an agreement with Indian media company Viacom18 and American entertainment giant Disney to create a joint venture, valued at $8.5 billion, forming one of India’s leading media companies. This joint venture aims to provide entertainment and sports coverage to more than 750 million viewers and will have exclusive rights to distribute Disney productions in India. Nita Ambani, Mukesh Ambani’s wife, is set to become the chair of the joint venture.

Family and residence

 

Antilia, Mukesh Ambani's residence

Mukesh Ambani's Antilia is one of the most expensive homes in the world.

Mukesh Ambani is married to Nita Ambani, an educationist, a businessperson, and a champion of women’s and children’s rights. She is a member of the International Olympic Committee; founder and chair of Reliance Foundation, RIL’s philanthropic arm; and manager of the high-value IPL team the Mumbai Indians. The billionaire couple lives in Antilia, their luxury home along South Mumbai’s Altamount Road, one of the most expensive addresses in the world. In fact, Antilia is one of the most expensive homes in the world. This ostentatious 400,000-square-foot (37,000-square-meter) residence has 27 floors, a temple, a salon, a private movie theater, a garage that can accommodate 168 cars, a car service station, and a snow room to help the family stay cool in the humid Mumbai summers.

 

Mukesh Ambani's family

From left: Mukesh Ambani with Radhika Merchant, Anant Ambani (younger son), Nita Ambani (wife), Isha Ambani (daughter), Anand Piramal (Isha Ambani's husband), Shloka Mehta (Akash Ambani's wife), and Akash Ambani (elder son) at Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant's engagement ceremony, January 19, 2023, Mumbai.(more)

Together Mukesh and Nita Ambani have three children—twins, Akash and Isha, and a younger son, Anant. The three Ambani children joined Reliance as board directors in August 2023. Akash Ambani heads Jio Infocomm; Isha Ambani is tasked with driving the expansion of Reliance Retail into newer formats and areas; and Anant Ambani is leading the Reliance Group’s energy and materials businesses, helping Reliance on its path to becoming a net-zero carbon company by 2035. Anant Ambani’s upcoming marriage to Radhika Merchant, board director of her father Viren Merchant’s Encore Healthcare, in July 2024 and the pre-wedding festivities that started in early March have grabbed headlines in India. The pre-wedding celebrations have featured a performance by pop star Rihanna, and the guest list includes the likes of Mark Zuckerberg and wife Priscilla Chan, Bill Gates, Sundar Pichai, Bollywood stars Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan, and Indian billionaires Gautam Adani and Kumar Mangalam Birla.

Other achievements

Mukesh Ambani was chosen in 2006 to cochair the India Economic Summit of the World Economic Forum (WEF)—an international organization made up of some of the world’s prominent business leaders, politicians, policymakers, scholars, philanthropists, trade unionists, and representatives of nongovernmental organizations that convenes annually to discuss global commerce, economic development, political concerns, and important social issues. In 2010 he was elected to serve as a member of the WEF Foundation Board.

Ambani was ranked number one among Indian CEOs and number two globally in the Brand Guardianship Index by Brand Finance for two consecutive years, 2023 and 2024. He also topped India Today’s “The High & Mighty 2023: 50 Power People” list. That same year he was among the top 10 in The Indian Express’s list of the most powerful Indians.

Ambani became India’s first rupee trillionaire in 2007, and that year The Economic Times newspaper and the news agency Press Trust of India simultaneously named him the world’s richest man. In January 2024 Forbes India named Ambani, with a net worth at the time of $96.4 billion, the richest person in Asia. He was featured in Forbes magazine’s annual billionaires list as one of the 10 richest people in the world in 2021, 2022, and 2023.

Jeannette L. NolenThe Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Contents

HomePolitics, Law & GovernmentWorld LeadersOther Politicians

History & Society

Anil Ambani

Indian businessman

Actions

Also known as: Anil Dhirubhai Ambani

Written and fact-checked by 

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Article History

Table of Contents

Recent News

Apr. 16, 2024, 7:24 AM ET (MSN)

Anil Ambani's Reliance Naval eyes RELISTING! Shares extinguished, new ones issued as part of takeover by Swan ...

Anil Ambani (born June 4, 1959, Bombay [now Mumbai], Maharashtra state, India) Indian business mogul and chairman of Reliance Group.

 

Anil Ambani

See all media

Category: History & Society

In full:

 

Anil Dhirubhai Ambani

Born:

 

June 4, 1959, Bombay [now Mumbai], Maharashtra state, India (age 64)

Title / Office:

 

Rajya Sabha (2004-2006), India

Notable Family Members:

 

father Dhirubhai Ambani

 

brother Mukesh Ambani

See all related content →

Ambani completed a B.Sc. at Kishinchand Chellaram College in Bombay (now Mumbai) and later studied at the University of Pennsylvania, where he received an M.B.A. from its prestigious Wharton School in 1983. He returned to India and joined his father, Dhirubhai Ambani, in carrying out his duties as chief executive officer. After his father suffered a stroke in 1985, Anil Ambani took on day-to-day management of the company’s financial relationships under his father’s oversight.

He and his brother, Mukesh Ambani, assumed joint leadership of the Reliance companies after their father’s death in 2002. However, the brothers’ feuding over control prompted their mother, Kokilaben Ambani, to split Reliance’s assets via a noncompetition agreement in 2005. Mukesh Ambani assumed control of Reliance Industries Limited and its more traditional units, while Anil Ambani gained control of the telecommunications, power generation, and financial services units through a demerger. After amending the noncompetition agreement in 2010, the brothers agreed in 2013 to share their companies’ telecommunication networks in their first major cooperative effort since 2005.

In the political sphere, Anil Ambani was elected in 2004 to represent Uttar Pradesh state in the Rajya Sabha, the upper chamber of India’s legislature. He resigned in 2006 amid public controversy over members of parliament holding offices of profit. The controversy had forced the resignation of Sonia Gandhi, leader of the Indian National Congress, from the lower chamber only days earlier. Although Ambani was not accused of any wrongdoing amid the controversy, he cited his “firm view” that public servants should remain free from the possibility of controversy.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia BritannicaThis article was most recently revised and updated by Adam Zeidan.

Contents

HomePolitics, Law & GovernmentBusinesspeople & Entrepreneurs

History & Society

Dhirubhai Ambani

Indian businessman

Actions

Also known as: Dhirajlal Hirachand Ambani

Written and fact-checked by 

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Article History

Table of Contents

Dhirubhai Ambani (born December 28, 1932, Chorwad, Gujarat, British India—died July 6, 2002, Mumbai, India) Indian industrialist who was the founder of Reliance Industries, a giant petrochemicals, communications, power, and textiles conglomerate that was the biggest exporter in India and the first privately owned Indian company in the Fortune 500.

 

Ambani, Dhirubhai

See all media

Category: History & Society

In full:

 

Dhirajlal Hirachand Ambani

Born:

 

December 28, 1932, Chorwad, Gujarat, British India

Died:

 

July 6, 2002, Mumbai, India (aged 69)

Founder:

 

Reliance Industries Limited

Notable Family Members:

 

son Mukesh Ambani

See all related content →

Ambani was the third of five children born to a village schoolteacher and his wife, and he grew up in a family of modest means. At the age of 17, he migrated to the British colony of Aden to join his brother. He started his career as a clerk at A. Besse & Co., which in the 1950s was the largest transcontinental trading firm east of Suez. There he learned trading, accounting, and other business skills. In 1958 Ambani returned to India and settled in Bombay (now Mumbai).

Ambani began a business trading in spices in the late 1950s, calling his nascent venture Reliance Commercial Corporation. He soon expanded into other commodities, following a strategy of offering higher-quality products and accepting smaller profits than his competitors. His business grew quickly. After deciding that the corporation had gone as far as it could with commodities, Ambani turned his attention to synthetic textiles. He made his first foray into backward integration with the opening of the first Reliance textile mill in 1966. Continuing a policy of backward integration and diversification, he gradually shaped Reliance into a petrochemicals behemoth and later added plastics and power generation to the company’s businesses.

In 1977 Ambani took Reliance public after nationalized banks refused to finance him. His agility in navigating a stodgy economy and crippling government regulations and bureaucracy led to allegations of political manipulation, corruption, and engineered raids on competitors, but investor confidence in Reliance remained unshaken—owing in part to the handsome dividends the company offered, as well as the founder’s charisma and vision. Ambani was credited with introducing the stock market to the average investor in India, and thousands attended the Reliance annual general meetings, which were sometimes held in a sports stadium, with many more watching on television.

Ambani handed over the day-to-day running of the company to his sons, Mukesh Ambani and Anil Ambani, in the mid-1980s but continued to oversee the company until shortly before his death in 2002.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia BritannicaThis article was most recently revised and updated by Pat Bauer.

Contents

HomePolitics, Law & GovernmentBanking & Business

History & Society

Reliance Industries Limited

Indian company

Actions

Also known as: RIL, Reliance Commercial Corporation

Written and fact-checked by 

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Last Updated: Mar 9, 2024 • Article History

Table of Contents

Recent News

Apr. 7, 2024, 11:07 PM ET (MSN)

Reliance Industries, Tata Motors & IOC key bidders for government's big pilot project on green or grey hydrogen in ...

Apr. 2, 2024, 12:08 PM ET (MarketWatch)

Reliance Industries outperforms market on strong trading day

Show More 

Reliance Industries Limited, privately owned conglomerate that operates in petrochemical production and refining, textile, retail, marketing, telecommunications, and other industries. It was the first privately owned Indian company to enter the Fortune 500. Headquarters are in Mumbai.

 

Dhirubhai Ambani

See all media

Category: History & Society

Headquarters:

 

India

 

Mumbai

Areas Of Involvement:

 

textile

 

e-commerce

 

petrochemical

Related People:

 

Mukesh Ambani

 

Dhirubhai Ambani

 

Anil Ambani

See all related content →

Reliance Commercial Corporation was set up in 1958 by Dhirubhai Ambani as a small venture firm trading commodities, especially spices and polyester yarn. Pursuing a strategy of backward integration and diversification, it opened its first textile mill in Naroda, Gujarat state, and was incorporated in 1966 as Reliance Textiles and Engineers, Ltd. Over the next decade its business focused on the textile industry even as it continued to expand.

Seeking to raise financial capital through means more accessible than India’s nationalized banks, Reliance took advantage of the recent “Indianization” of the stock market and floated an initial public offering (IPO) in 1977. The IPO, which issued 2.8 million shares, was credited with engaging small investors in the stock market and equity shareholding. Thousands attended the Reliance annual general meetings, which were sometimes held in a sports stadium, with many more watching on television. Company shares continued to attract investors despite the uncertainties of a stodgy economy, crippling government regulations, and political corruption, in part due to the shares’ handsome dividends as well as the founder’s charisma and vision.

With investors eager to own shares, Reliance expanded rapidly into sectors adjacent to its textile business, and in 1985 it became known as Reliance Industries Limited. After gaining the capacity to manufacture petrochemicals useful for synthetic textiles, such as polyester staple fibre and purified terephthalic acid, it later began manufacturing plastics and, eventually, refining petroleum. In 1991 Reliance opened a massive industrial complex in Hazira, Gujarat state, propelling the corporation to the forefront of production in the global polyester market. By the turn of the 21st century its new petroleum refinery in Jamnagar, Gujarat state, commanded a refining capacity far exceeding that of any other petroleum refinery in the world.

 

Mukesh Ambani

Mukesh Ambani, 2007

Following Dhirubhai’s death in 2002, his sons Mukesh and Anil assumed joint leadership of the Reliance companies. However, the brothers’ feuding over control prompted their mother, Kokilaben, to split Reliance’s assets via a noncompetition agreement in 2005, whereby Mukesh assumed control of Reliance Industries Limited and its more traditional units while Anil gained control of the telecommunications, power generation, and financial services units through a demerger. After amending the noncompetition agreement in 2010, Reliance Industries reentered the telecommunications market through a subsidiary known as Jio Platforms; in 2013 Mukesh and Anil agreed to share telecommunication networks in their first major cooperative effort since 2005. After Reliance offered the first nationwide network for 4G broadband service, Jio became one of India’s leading brands in telecommunications and e-commerce.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia BritannicaThis article was most recently revised and updated by Adam Zeidan.

Contents

HomeLifestyles & Social IssuesEducation

History & Society

University of Mumbai

university, Mumbai, India

Actions

Also known as: University of Bombay

Written and fact-checked by 

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Article History

Table of Contents

Recent News

Apr. 18, 2024, 3:51 AM ET (The Indian Express)

Mumbai University issues warning against fake marksheet offers

University of Mumbai, one of India’s first modern universities, established by the British in 1857. Originally an affiliating and degree-granting body, the university later added teaching to its functions. With the establishment of regional universities in the state in 1948–50, it was designated a federal university, with jurisdiction over numerous colleges and postgraduate institutions in the metropolitan area of Greater Mumbai (Bombay). The university has faculties of arts, science, technology, law, medicine, commerce, dentistry, fine arts, and Indian medicine. The primary language of instruction is English. Total enrollment is more than 250,000 students.

Mumbai, University of HomeEntertainment & Pop CultureLeisure & Nightlife

Arts & Culture

sports

Actions

Written by 

David Charles Rowe, 

Joseph Anthony Maguire, 

Allen GuttmannSee All

Fact-checked by 

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Article History

Table of Contents

Recent News

Apr. 20, 2024, 10:06 AM ET (ABC News (Australia))

Sporting codes take action to stop parents verbally abusing young players and umpires

Apr. 4, 2024, 8:00 PM ET (AP)

When voters say 'no' to new stadiums, what do professional sports teams do next?

Sports, physical contests pursued for the goals and challenges they entail. Sports are part of every culture past and present, but each culture has its own definition of sports. The most useful definitions are those that clarify the relationship of sports to play, games, and contests. “Play,” wrote the German theorist Carl Diem, “is purposeless activity, for its own sake, the opposite of work.” Humans work because they have to; they play because they want to. Play is autotelic—that is, it has its own goals. It is voluntary and uncoerced. Recalcitrant children compelled by their parents or teachers to compete in a game of football (soccer) are not really engaged in a sport. Neither are professional athletes if their only motivation is their paycheck. In the real world, as a practical matter, motives are frequently mixed and often quite impossible to determine. Unambiguous definition is nonetheless a prerequisite to practical determinations about what is and is not an example of play.