Ambani still critical

Business icon Dhirubhai Ambani’s critical condition was unchanged on Sunday after he suffered a stroke last week which put him on life support.

“His condition continues to be critical but stable,” a hospital spokesman told Reuters on Sunday. Ambani, 69, chairman of both Reliance Industries, the nation’s largest petrochemicals firm, and Reliance Petroleum, the world’s largest grassroots refinery, was admitted to Mumbai’s Breach Candy hospital on Monday after suffering a second stroke. A cerebral stroke in 1986 had left him partially paralysed.

News of his hospitalisation sent stock prices of the two biggest group companies, which account for about 15 percent of the benchmark 30-issue Bombay index, tumbling. Since Tuesday, when the shares traded for the first time after Ambani’s stroke, Reliance Industries stock has declined 4.9 per cent and Reliance Petroleum has dropped 4.4 percent.