Three years on, still no peace between Ambanis

This perhaps is proving to the most noisy settlement in India’s corporate history where the two sides are questioning each other’s bonafides. But the shareholders have no complaints as the two brothers are scaling up their investment multifold.

At the time of parting on this day three years ago, the Reliance empire was worth over Rs one lakh crore. This has now grown over six times with elder’s group accounting for nearly two-thirds of the combined wealth.

It is a coincidence that while the settlement over the division of family empire, brokered by mother Kokila Ben Ambani, was signed in the wee hours of June 18, 2005, Anil Ambani group company Reliance Natural Resources Ltd today moved the Mumbai High Court against Mukesh-led Reliance Industries on the basis of media reports on the gas dispute.

At the same time, Anil’s other group company Reliance Communication today opened fire on Mukesh’s side digging out an old communication of January 12, 2006 with allegations of ‘fraudulent misuse of powers’, ‘Criminal breech of trust’ and gross violation of fiduciary obligations’ by RIL officials.

On the other hand, RIL has threatened legal action against Reliance Communication on its proposed deal with South African giant MTN saying that it had the first right of refusal over the majority stake in Anil’s group company.

The fight notwithstanding, the market capitalization of Mukesh’s group company today stands over Rs 4.1 lakh crore while that of Anil’s group is more that Rs 2.2 lakh crore.

During the three-year period both sides have come face to face many times when they were involved in bidding for major real estate properties or transport projects, including Mumbai Trans Harbour project.

Simultaneously they were involved in a bitter battle over the terms and pricing of the gas that RIL is to give to Anil’s group company.

Any new business venturing by either side almost always saw public bickering between the two, like Anil’s camp accusing breach of non-compete agreement when Mukesh’s group started a 2000 mw captive power project in the mega Special Economic Zone in Haryana.

Yet the fight did not eclipse the entrepreneurship of either Mukesh or Anil as they kept adding more businesses, either greenfield or through acquisition.

While Reliance Power is the new business that Anil’s group started, besides a spate of acquisition in financial and entertainment sector, Mukesh went along with creating unheard of capacities and business be it in Reliance Petroleum, Retail, or SEZ besides developing the oil and gas exploration and production.

Three years down the lane, today Mukesh’s Reliance Group is the biggest corporate entity with a turnover of about Rs 1,50,000 crore with profits of about Rs 20,000 crore.

On the other hand, Anil’s group, which started on a lower base of about Rs 5,000 crore, but scaled up the turnover to over about Rs 24,000 crore and a profit of about Rs 5,000 crore.

The personal stakes of the two brothers in their respective companies make Mukesh and Anil as the top two richest Indians wherein elder brother has a slight edge over the younger.