Dhirubhai Ambani
Encyclopedia
Dhirajlal Hirachand Ambani also known as Dhirubhai, (28 December 1932 – 6 July 2002) (Gujarati
: ધીરજલાલ હીરાચંદ અંબાની) was an Indian-Gujarati business magnate
and entrepreneur who founded Reliance Industries
, a petrochemicals, communications, power, and textiles conglomerate
and the only privately owned Indian company in the Fortune 500
. Ambani took his company public in 1977. Dhirubhai has been one among the select Forbes billionaires and has also figured in the Sunday Times list of top 50 businessmen in Asia. His life has often been referred to as a true "rags to riches
" story.
Dhirubhai started off as a small time worker with Arab merchants in the 1950s and moved to Mumbai in 1958 to start his own business in spices. After making modest profits, he moved into textiles and opened his mill near Ahmedabad. Dhirubhai founded Reliance Industries in 1958 and today the company, with over 85,000 employees, provides almost 5% of the Central Government's total tax revenue. Ambani was credited with introducing the stock market
to the average investor, and thousands of investors attended the Reliance annual general meetings, which were sometimes held in a football stadium, with millions more watching on television.
In 1986 after a heart attack he handed over Reliance Group to his sons Mukesh and Anil. After his death, the group was split into Reliance Industries
, headed by Mukesh Ambani
and Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group
(Reliance ADAG), led by Anil Ambani
.
Dhirubhai was precocious and highly intelligent. He was also highly impatient of the oppressive grinding mill of the school classroom. He chose work which used his physical ability to the maximum rather than cramming school lessons. When Jamnaben once asked Dhirubhai and Ramnikbhai to help his father by earning money, he angrily replied, "Why do you keep screaming for money? I will make heaps of money one day". On weekends, he began setting up onion/potato fries stall at village fairs and made extra money which he gave his mother. He also used to sell milk powder to make his income.
Hirachandbhai asked his son the very night he reached home. "Well, I'll tell you. You know I have been unwell for past several months. I cannot work any more. I know you want to study further but I can't afford that any more. I need you to earn for the family. I need your money. The family needs it. You must work now. Ramnikbhai has arranged a job for you in Aden. You go there."
Dhirubhai had really wanted to study for a bachelor's degree, but his ambition melted when he looked into the anxious eyes of his sick father. "I'll do as you say" he said and the very next morning he left for Rajkot to get his passport. Those days Indians did not need a visa for entering Aden but there were rumours around that the no visa regime was about to change any day. So he needed to hurry up before the visa rules changed. In a few days he was in Bombay to board the ship to Aden. It was on board the ship that's Dhirubhai learnt from Gujarati newspaper that he had passed his matriculation examination in second division.
On reaching Aden, Dhirubhai joined office on the very day of his arrival. It was a clerk's job with the A. Besse & Co., named after its French founder Antonin Besse. Those days Aden was the second busiest trading and oil bunkering port in the world after London handling over 6,300 ships and 1,500 dhows a year.
And, there in Aden, A. Besse & Co. was the largest transcontinental trading firm east of Suez. It was engaged in almost every branch of trading business-cargo booking, handling, shipping, forwarding, and wholesale merchandising. Besse acted as trading agents for a large number of European, American, African and Asian companies and dealt with all sorts of goods ranging from sugar, spices, food grains and textiles to office stationary, tools, machinery and petroleum products. Dhirubhai was first sent to the commodities trading section of the firm. Later, he was transferred to the section that handled petroleum products for the oil giant Shell
"I learnt business at the Besse which was then the best trading firm this side of the Suez," he used to tell friends in later years. He was quick on the uptake. He learnt the ways of commodity trading, high seas purchase and sales, marketing and distribution, currency trading, and money management. During lunch break he roamed the souks and bazaars of Aden where traders from numerous different continents and countries bought and sold goods worth millions of pound sterling, the then global currency, during the day. He met traders from all parts of Europe, Africa, India, Japan and China. Aden was the biggest trading port of the times, a trading port where goods landed from all parts of the world and were dispatched to the farthest corners of different continents. Speculation in manufactured goods and commodities was rife all over the Aden bazaars.
Dhirubhai felt tempted to speculate but had no money for that and was still raw for such trading. To learn the tricks of the trade he offered to work free for a Gujarati trading firm. There he learnt accounting, book keeping, preparing shipping papers and documents, and dealing with banks and insurance companies., skills that would come handy when he launched himself into trading about a decade afterwards in Bombay. At the Besse office during the day he polished his skills in typing and Pitman shorthand, drafting commercial letters, and composing legal documents.
At the boarding house where he lived with another twenty-five or so young Gujarati clerks and office boys, he devoted long hours of the night mastering English grammar, essay writing, current affairs and a host of subjects that took his fancy from week to week. He was the first to snatch the English, Gujarati and Hindi daily papers and weeklies as soon as they arrived by the ship ever day. The Times of India, Blitz, Janmabhoomi and Navajeevan formed his favourite reading material. He also devoured all sorts of books, magazines and journals the passengers arriving from various European and Indian ports left in the ships and at the offices of various shipping agents.
"Of all the books I read so avidly those days one I remember most fondly are (Jawaharlal Nehru's) the "Glimpses of World History" and the "Discovery of India," he would recall long after his Aden days. "They were fat, big books but written in simple English and to me they opened a whole new world of adventure, of human wisdom and human folly. I began reading them not to learn of world history but to practice my English but once I opened their pages their breadth of vision had me in a thrall. I used to keep a dictionary by my side when reading these books and note down every new word I came across to increase my vocabulary. Later when I used to draft letters to ministers and senior officials during my early Bombay days, I used whole lot of quotations, phrases and impressive words from these two books."
He also gorged on dozens of books and magazine articles on psychology that became his favourite subject for a long time. "I learnt much from this class of my reading," he sometimes said, "I learnt how we humans and animals love to be loved more than anything else, how we are driven by desire to earn the love, affection and honor of those around us, what it is to be a leader, how to motivate those whom we want to attain great heights, how ideologies and interests clash and reconcile or cancel each other.
"More than anything else I learnt that nothing big can ever be achieved without money, influence and power and I also learnt that money, influence and power alone cannot achieve anything in life, big or small, without a certain soft, delicate, sensitive, understanding human touch in all one's deeds and words."
After he thought he had learnt the basics of commodities trading, Dhirubhai began speculating in high seas purchase and sales of all sorts of goods. He did not have enough money of his own for such speculative trading. So he borrowed as much as he could from friends and small Aden shopkeepers on terms nobody had ever offered them. "Profit we share and all loss will be mine" became his motto. During lunch break and after office hours he was always in the local bazaar, trading in one thing or the other.
Soon, those around him found that he had an uncanny knack for such speculative trading. He seldom lost money in any deal. "I think I had an animal instinct about such trading but there was a lot of reading and understanding of market trends behind that animal instinct of mine. I read every bit of paper I could lay my hands on about what was happening around the world, I listened carefully to every word uttered in the market, picked every bit of gossip in the shipping circles and pondered long through the night in the bed about the pros and cons of every deal I wanted to make."
Meantime, the Shell oil refinery and the first oil harbour came up in Aden in 1954, the year Dhirubhai returned home to Gujarat to marry Kokilaben. As expected, A. Besse & Co. became the agents for distribution of Shell refinery products. Dhirubhai had done well at the office during his first five years. Now he was sent on promotion to the oil filling station at the newly built harbour.
He liked the new job, though it was a lot more demanding than the desk job in the commodities section. Here he had to service the ships bunkering for diesel and lubricants. He enjoyed visiting the ships, making friends with sailors and the engine staff I heard from them first hand accounts of their voyages in different parts of the world of which he had until then read about only in books and magazines. And, here it was that he first began dreaming of one day building a refinery of his own.
"It was a crazy idea for a petrol pump attendant to want to build a refinery of his own, but that is the sort of crazy ideas I have been playing with all my life," Dhirubhai recalled at the time Reliance's 25-million ton oil refinery, the largest grassroots refinery in the world, went on stream in Jamnagar in 1999. "I have been able to build this refinery because I decided long years ago not to settle for anything else," he said, "I had heard a Yemeni proverb in Aden "la budd min Sana'a wa lau taal al-safr" (You must visit Sana'a, however long the journey takes). I never forgot that saying."
By the late 1950s it became clear that the British rule in Aden would not last long in the face of growing Yemeni movement for independence supported by Gamal Abdel Nasser's revolutionary government from across the Suez. The large Indian community of Hindu and Parsee Gujaratis began preparing to move out of Aden. Some began returning home to India, while some chose to settle in Britain. Aden Indians those days were allowed to settle in Britain.
Where to go on leaving Aden was debated among the colony's settlers heatedly everyday. Some of Dhirubhai's friends told him that he should migrate to London where, considering his talents, acumen and guts, he could find better opportunities of growth. At the port and on ships at Aden he often heard glowing accounts of post-war Britain and the promises of a life of much greater ease there than one could ever hope to find in India.
Dhirubhai weighed his options.. By now he had saved some money and was thinking of setting up some business of his own. Although Dhirubhai's father had died in 1952, he had in the meantime been blessed with his first son, Mukesh D. Ambani, in April, 1957. Kokilaben and Mukesh were back home in India.The choice of opening a shop somewhere in London was tempting but he felt India was calling him home.
Those were exciting years in India. The country was in the midst of implementing the second five-year Plan which promised to build big industries, raise new big dams across many rivers, lay new roads through the length and breadth of the country, boost agricultural production to new record levels and set up a huge network of food grains procurement centers.
Though by the end of 1958, the newspapers coming from India were painting a rather gloomy picture of the country's finances and foreign exchange reserves, there was also a new vigour and a new fervor in their reports of a new Rs 10,000-crore five-year Plan then under preparation. The Plan promised to open massive new opportunities for growth for the country's youth. Jawaharlal Nehru was daily exhorting the young to cast away their old ways and help build a new India. His words were stirring and roused the passions of every young Indian, especially of those living far away from the country.
Dhirubhai was now 26 years (1957), full of youthful vigour and vitality, and filled with high hopes for himself and for the new India of Nehru's dreams. He just could not miss the excitement of being in India in such tumultuous times. He decided to return home, instead of going to London to live a life of ease there.
, Yemen
. Majin was to import polyester yarn and export spices to Yemen. The first office of the Reliance Commercial Corporation was set up at the Narsinatha Street in Masjid Bunder
. It was 350 sq ft (32.5 m²). room with a telephone, one table and three chairs. Initially, they had two assistants to help them with their business. During this period, Dhirubhai and his family used to stay in a one bedroom apartment at the Jaihind Estate in Bhuleshwar, Mumbai
. In 1965, Champaklal Damani and Dhirubhai Ambani ended their partnership and Dhirubhai started on his own. It is believed that both had different temperament
s and a different take on how to conduct business. While Mr. Damani was a cautious trader and did not believe in building yarn inventories, Dhirubhai was a known risk taker and he believed in building inventories, anticipating a price rise, and making profits. In 1968, he moved to an upmarket apartment at Altamount Road in South Mumbai
. Ambani's net worth was estimated at about Rs.10 lakh by late 1970s.
, in Ahmedabad
in the year 1966. Textiles were manufactured using polyester fibre yarn. Dhirubhai started the brand "Vimal", which was named after his elder brother Ramaniklal Ambani's son, Vimal Ambani. Extensive marketing of the brand "Vimal" in the interiors of India
made it a household name. Franchise retail outlets were started and they used to sell "only Vimal" brand of textiles. In the year 1975, a Technical team from the World Bank
visited the Reliance Textiles' Manufacturing unit. This unit has the rare distinction of being certified as "excellent even by developed country standards" during that period. Amit Mehra had played a pivotal role in helping and supporting Dhirubhai in this success.
Reliance Industries
was the first private sector company whose Annual General Meetings were held in stadium
s. In 1986, The Annual General Meeting of Reliance Industries number of first-time retail investors to invest in Reliance. Ambani's net worth was estimated at about Rs.1 billion by early 1980s.
was making all efforts to ensure that their stock prices did not slide an inch. Sensing an opportunity, a bear cartel which was a group of stock brokers from Calcutta started to short sell the shares of Reliance. To counter this, a group of stock brokers till recently referred to as "Friends of Reliance" started to buy the short sold shares of Reliance Industries on the Bombay Stock Exchange
.
The Bear Cartel was acting on the belief that the Bulls
would be short of cash to complete the transactions
and would be ready for settlement under the "Badla
" trading system operative in the Bombay Stock Exchange
. The bulls kept on buying and a price of Rs. 152 per share was maintained till the day of settlement. On the day of settlement, the Bear Cartel was taken aback when the Bulls demanded a physical delivery of shares. To complete the transaction, the much needed cash was provided to the stock brokers who had bought shares of Reliance, by none other than Dhirubhai Ambani. In the case of non-settlement, the Bulls demanded an "Unbadla" (a penalty sum) of Rs.
35 per share. With this, the demand increased and the shares of Reliance shot above 180 rupees in minutes. The settlement caused an enormous uproar in the market.
To find a solution to this situation, the Bombay Stock Exchange was closed for three business days. Authorities from the Bombay Stock Exchange
(BSE) intervened in the matter and brought down the "Unbadla" rate to Rs. 2 with a stipulation that the Bear Cartel had to deliver the shares within the next few days. The Bear Cartel bought shares of Reliance from the market at higher price levels and it was also learnt that Dhirubhai Ambani himself supplied those shares to the Bear Cartel and earned a healthy profit out of The Bear Cartel's adventure.
After this incident, many questions were raised by his detractors and the press. Not many people were able to understand as to how a yarn trader till a few years ago was able to get in such a huge amount of cash flow during a crisis period. The answer to this was provided by the then finance minister, Pranab Mukherjee
in the parliament. He informed the house that a Non-Resident Indian had invested up to Rs.
22 Crore in Reliance during 1982-83. These investments were routed through many companies like Crocodile, Lota and Fiasco. These companies were primarily registered in Isle of Man
. The interesting factor was that all the promoters or owners of these companies had a common surname Shah
. An investigation by the Reserve Bank of India
in the incident did not find any unethical or illegal acts or transactions committed by Reliance or its promoters.
The final phase of Reliance’s diversification occurred in the 1990s when the company turned aggressively towards petrochemicals and telecommunications.
Tussle with Nusli Wadia
Nusli Wadia
of Bombay Dyeing
was, at one point in time, the biggest competitor of Dhirubhai and Reliance Industries
. Both Nusli Wadia and Dhirubhai were known for their influence in the political circles and their ability to get the most difficult licenses approved during the times of pre-liberalized economy.
During the Janata Party
rule between 1977 - 1979, Nusli Wadia obtained the permission to build a 60,000 tonnes per annum Dimethyl terephthalate
(DMT) plant. Before the letter of intent was converted into a licence, many hurdles came in the way. Finally, in 1981, Nusli Wadia was granted the license for the plant. This incident acted as a catalyst between the two parties and the competition took an ugly turn.
The Indian Express Articles
At one point in time, Ramnath Goenka
was a friend of Dhirubhai Ambani. Ramnath Goenka was also considered to be close to Nusli Wadia
. On many occasions, Ramnath Goenka tried to intervene between the two warring factions and bring an end to the enmity. Goenka and Ambani became rivals mainly because Ambani's corrupt business practices and his illegal actions that lead to Goenka not getting a fair share in the company. Later on, Ramnath Goenka chose to support Nusli Wadia. At one point of time, Ramnath Goenka is believed to have said "Nusli is an Englishman. He cannot handle Ambani. I am a bania. I know how to finish him"....
As days passed by, The Indian Express
, a broadsheet daily published by him, carried a series of articles against Reliance Industries and Dhirubhai in which they claimed that Dhirubhai was using unfair trade practices to maximise the profits. Ramnath Goenka did not use his staff at the Indian Express to investigate the case but assigned his close confidante, advisor and chartered accountant S. Gurumurthy
for this task. Apart from S. Gurumurthy, another journalist Maneck Davar who was not on the rolls of Indian Express started contributing stories. Jamnadas Moorjani, a businessman opposed to the Ambanis was also a part of this campaign.
Both Ambani and Goenka were equally criticized and admired by sections of the society. People criticized Goenka that he was using a national newspaper for the cause of a personal enmity. Critics believed that there were many other businessman in the country who were using more unfair and unethical practices but Goenka chose to target only Ambani and not the others. Critics also admired Goenka for his ability to run these articles without any help from his regular staff. Dhirubhai Ambani was also getting more recognition and admiration, in the meantime. A section of the public started to appreciate Dhirubhai's business sense and his ability to tame the system according to his wishes.
The end to this tussle came only after Dhirubhai Ambani suffered a stroke. While Dhirubhai Ambani was recovering in San Diego, his sons Mukesh Ambani
and Anil Ambani
managed the affairs. The Indian Express had turned the guns against Reliance and was directly blaming the government for not doing enough to penalize Reliance Industries. The battle between Wadia - Goenka and the Ambanis took a new direction and became a national crisis. Gurumurthy and another journalist, Mulgaokar consorted with President
Giani Zail Singh and ghost-wrote
a hostile letter to the Prime Minister
on his behalf. The Indian Express published a draft of the President’s letter as a scoop, not realizing that Zail Singh had made changes to the letter before sending it to Rajiv Gandhi. Ambani had won the battle at this point. Now, while the tussle was directly between the Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Ramnath Goenka, Ambani made a quiet exit. The government then raided the Express guest house in Delhi
’s Sunder Nagar and found the original draft with corrections in Mulgaokar’s handwriting. By 1988-89, Rajiv’s government retaliated with a series of prosecutions against the Indian Express. Even then, Goenka retained his iconic stature because, to many people, he seemed to be replaying his heroic defiance during the Emergency regime.
Dhirubhai and V. P. Singh
It was widely known that Dhirubhai didn't enjoy a cordial relation with Vishwanath Pratap Singh, who succeeded Rajiv Gandhi
as the Prime Minister of India
. In May 1985, he suddenly removed the import of Purified terephthalic acid from the Open General License category. As a raw material this was very important to manufacture polyester filament yarn. This made it very difficult for Reliance to carry on operations. Reliance was able to secure, from various financial institutions, letters of credit that would allow it to import almost one full year’s requirement of PTA on the eve of the issuance of the government notification, changing the category under which PTA could be imported. In 1990, the government-owned financial institutions like the Life Insurance Corporation of India
and the General Insurance Corporation of India
stonewalled attempts by the Reliance group to acquire managerial control over Larsen & Toubro
. Sensing defeat, the Ambanis resigned from the board of the company. Dhirubhai, who had become L&T's chairman in April 1989, had to quit his post to make way for D. N. Ghosh, former chairman of the State Bank of India
.
Dhirubhai Ambani was admitted to the Breach Candy Hospital in Mumbai
on June 24, 2002 after he suffered a major stroke. This was his second stroke. The first one had occurred in February, 1986 and had kept his right hand paralyzed. He was, latterly, in a state of coma for more than a week. A number of doctors were used. He died on July 6, 2002, at around 11:50 p.m. (Indian Standard Time).
His funeral procession was not only attended by business people, politicians and celebrities but also by thousands of ordinary people. His elder son, Mukesh Ambani
, performed the last rites as per Hindu
traditions. He was cremated at the Chandanwadi Crematorium in Mumbai at around 4:30 PM (Indian Standard Time) on July 7, 2002.
He is survived by Kokilaben Ambani, his wife, two sons, Mukesh Ambani
and Anil Ambani
, and two daughters, Nina Kothari and Deepti Salgaonkar. Dhirubhai Ambani started his long journey in Mumbai
from the Mulji-Jetha Textile Market, where he started as a small-trader. As a mark of respect to this great businessman, The Mumbai Textile Merchants' decided to keep the market closed on July 8, 2002. At the time of Dhirubhai's death, Reliance Group had a gross turnover of Rs.
75,000 Crore or USD $ 15 Billion. In 1976-77, the Reliance group had an annual turnover of Rs 70 crore and it is to be remembered that Dhirubhai had started the business with just Rs.
1,50,000 (US$3500)
Kundapur Vaman Kamath
, the Managing Director of ICICI Bank
was seen in media, a close friend of the Ambani family who helped to settle the issue. The brothers had entrusted their mother, Kokilaben Ambani, to resolve the issue. On June 18, 2005, Kokilaben Ambani announced the settlement through a press release.
The Reliance empire was split between the Ambani brothers,
Mukesh Ambani
getting RIL and IPCL & his younger sibling Anil Ambani
heading Reliance Capital, Reliance Energy and Reliance Infocomm. The entity headed by Mukesh Ambani is referred to as the Reliance Industries Limited whereas Anil's Group has been renamed Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (Reliance ADA Group).
Reliance Institute of Life Sciences
, a Dhirubhai Ambani Foundation Initiative, was established to promote higher education in various fields of life sciences and related technologies.
titled "The Polyester Prince" is also an unauthorised biography of Dhirubhai Ambani, outlining all his political and business conquests. HarperCollins didn't sell the book in India, because the Dirubhai threatened legal action. As of 2010, Amazon.com listed the price book at >400.
A film said to be inspired by the life of Dhirubhai Ambani was released on 12 January 2007. The Hindi Film Guru, directed by ace filmmaker Mani Ratnam
, cinematography by Rajiv Menon
and music by A.R.Rahman shows the struggle of a man striving to make his mark in the Indian business world with a fictional Shakti Group of Industries. The film stars Abhishek Bachchan
, Mithun Chakraborty
, Aishwarya Rai
, R. Madhavan
and Vidya Balan
. In the film, Abhishek Bachchan plays Guru Kant Desai, a character implicitly based on Dhirubhai Ambani. The character is known in the film as "GURUBHAI", similar to the real-life "DHIRUBHAI." Mithun Chakraborty portrays Manikda who bears an uncanny resemblance to the real life Ramanath Goenka
and Madhvan portrays S. Gurumurthy
, who gained national fame twenty years ago, spearheading virulent attacks against the Reliance group in one of India's bloodiest corporate wars ever.
In 2010, an updated version of the book went on sale in India, called Ambani and Sons, there has been no legal action against the publisher so far.
Dhirubhai Ambani The Wealth Creator of India (Presentation by http://www.techite.com/ )
Gujarati language
Gujarati is an Indo-Aryan language, and part of the greater Indo-European language family. It is derived from a language called Old Gujarati which is the ancestor language of the modern Gujarati and Rajasthani languages...
: ધીરજલાલ હીરાચંદ અંબાની) was an Indian-Gujarati business magnate
Business magnate
A business magnate, sometimes referred to as a capitalist, czar, mogul, tycoon, baron, oligarch, or industrialist, is an informal term used to refer to an entrepreneur who has reached prominence and derived a notable amount of wealth from a particular industry .-Etymology:The word magnate itself...
and entrepreneur who founded Reliance Industries
Reliance Industries
Reliance Industries Limited is an Indian conglomerate company headquartered at Mumbai, India. The company operates through three business segments: petrochemicals, refining, and oil and gas, other segment of the company includes textile, retail business, special economic zone development and...
, a petrochemicals, communications, power, and textiles conglomerate
Conglomerate (company)
A conglomerate is a combination of two or more corporations engaged in entirely different businesses that fall under one corporate structure , usually involving a parent company and several subsidiaries. Often, a conglomerate is a multi-industry company...
and the only privately owned Indian company in the Fortune 500
Fortune 500
The Fortune 500 is an annual list compiled and published by Fortune magazine that ranks the top 500 U.S. closely held and public corporations as ranked by their gross revenue after adjustments made by Fortune to exclude the impact of excise taxes companies collect. The list includes publicly and...
. Ambani took his company public in 1977. Dhirubhai has been one among the select Forbes billionaires and has also figured in the Sunday Times list of top 50 businessmen in Asia. His life has often been referred to as a true "rags to riches
Rags to riches
Rags to Riches refers to any situation in which a person rises from poverty to wealth, or sometimes from obscurity to fame. This is a common archetype in literature and popular culture ....
" story.
Dhirubhai started off as a small time worker with Arab merchants in the 1950s and moved to Mumbai in 1958 to start his own business in spices. After making modest profits, he moved into textiles and opened his mill near Ahmedabad. Dhirubhai founded Reliance Industries in 1958 and today the company, with over 85,000 employees, provides almost 5% of the Central Government's total tax revenue. Ambani was credited with introducing the stock market
Stock market
A stock market or equity market is a public entity for the trading of company stock and derivatives at an agreed price; these are securities listed on a stock exchange as well as those only traded privately.The size of the world stock market was estimated at about $36.6 trillion...
to the average investor, and thousands of investors attended the Reliance annual general meetings, which were sometimes held in a football stadium, with millions more watching on television.
In 1986 after a heart attack he handed over Reliance Group to his sons Mukesh and Anil. After his death, the group was split into Reliance Industries
Reliance Industries
Reliance Industries Limited is an Indian conglomerate company headquartered at Mumbai, India. The company operates through three business segments: petrochemicals, refining, and oil and gas, other segment of the company includes textile, retail business, special economic zone development and...
, headed by Mukesh Ambani
Mukesh Ambani
Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambani is an Indian business magnate. He is the chairman and managing director of Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries, the largest private sector enterprise in India listed in Fortune 500 magazine. His personal stake in Reliance Industries is 48%...
and Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group
Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group
Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group is one of India's largest conglomerates, headquartered in Navi Mumbai, India. The company, which was formed after Dhirubhai Ambani's business empire was divided up, is headed by his younger son Anil Ambani. It has a market capitalization of US$ 15 billion,...
(Reliance ADAG), led by Anil Ambani
Anil Ambani
Anil Dhirubhai Ambani is an Indian-Gujarati business baron and chairman of Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, one of the largest private conglomerates. Anil's elder brother, Mukesh Ambani, is worth more than 29 billion dollars, and owns another company called Reliance Industries...
.
Early life
Hirachand Ambani was a village school teacher with less income given to him. Hirachand and Jamnaben had two daughters - Trilochanaben and Jasuben and three sons - Ramnikbhai, Dhirubhai and Natubhai. Dhirubhai was the second son.Dhirubhai was precocious and highly intelligent. He was also highly impatient of the oppressive grinding mill of the school classroom. He chose work which used his physical ability to the maximum rather than cramming school lessons. When Jamnaben once asked Dhirubhai and Ramnikbhai to help his father by earning money, he angrily replied, "Why do you keep screaming for money? I will make heaps of money one day". On weekends, he began setting up onion/potato fries stall at village fairs and made extra money which he gave his mother. He also used to sell milk powder to make his income.
Life in Aden (1949-1958)
Just after Dhirubhai was through his annual matriculation examination and even before the result was out, Hirachandbhai called him home to Chorwad. Hirachandbhai had been unwell for quite some time and had grown extremely weak and frail. "Dhiru, do you know why I have called you here?"Hirachandbhai asked his son the very night he reached home. "Well, I'll tell you. You know I have been unwell for past several months. I cannot work any more. I know you want to study further but I can't afford that any more. I need you to earn for the family. I need your money. The family needs it. You must work now. Ramnikbhai has arranged a job for you in Aden. You go there."
Dhirubhai had really wanted to study for a bachelor's degree, but his ambition melted when he looked into the anxious eyes of his sick father. "I'll do as you say" he said and the very next morning he left for Rajkot to get his passport. Those days Indians did not need a visa for entering Aden but there were rumours around that the no visa regime was about to change any day. So he needed to hurry up before the visa rules changed. In a few days he was in Bombay to board the ship to Aden. It was on board the ship that's Dhirubhai learnt from Gujarati newspaper that he had passed his matriculation examination in second division.
On reaching Aden, Dhirubhai joined office on the very day of his arrival. It was a clerk's job with the A. Besse & Co., named after its French founder Antonin Besse. Those days Aden was the second busiest trading and oil bunkering port in the world after London handling over 6,300 ships and 1,500 dhows a year.
And, there in Aden, A. Besse & Co. was the largest transcontinental trading firm east of Suez. It was engaged in almost every branch of trading business-cargo booking, handling, shipping, forwarding, and wholesale merchandising. Besse acted as trading agents for a large number of European, American, African and Asian companies and dealt with all sorts of goods ranging from sugar, spices, food grains and textiles to office stationary, tools, machinery and petroleum products. Dhirubhai was first sent to the commodities trading section of the firm. Later, he was transferred to the section that handled petroleum products for the oil giant Shell
"I learnt business at the Besse which was then the best trading firm this side of the Suez," he used to tell friends in later years. He was quick on the uptake. He learnt the ways of commodity trading, high seas purchase and sales, marketing and distribution, currency trading, and money management. During lunch break he roamed the souks and bazaars of Aden where traders from numerous different continents and countries bought and sold goods worth millions of pound sterling, the then global currency, during the day. He met traders from all parts of Europe, Africa, India, Japan and China. Aden was the biggest trading port of the times, a trading port where goods landed from all parts of the world and were dispatched to the farthest corners of different continents. Speculation in manufactured goods and commodities was rife all over the Aden bazaars.
Dhirubhai felt tempted to speculate but had no money for that and was still raw for such trading. To learn the tricks of the trade he offered to work free for a Gujarati trading firm. There he learnt accounting, book keeping, preparing shipping papers and documents, and dealing with banks and insurance companies., skills that would come handy when he launched himself into trading about a decade afterwards in Bombay. At the Besse office during the day he polished his skills in typing and Pitman shorthand, drafting commercial letters, and composing legal documents.
At the boarding house where he lived with another twenty-five or so young Gujarati clerks and office boys, he devoted long hours of the night mastering English grammar, essay writing, current affairs and a host of subjects that took his fancy from week to week. He was the first to snatch the English, Gujarati and Hindi daily papers and weeklies as soon as they arrived by the ship ever day. The Times of India, Blitz, Janmabhoomi and Navajeevan formed his favourite reading material. He also devoured all sorts of books, magazines and journals the passengers arriving from various European and Indian ports left in the ships and at the offices of various shipping agents.
"Of all the books I read so avidly those days one I remember most fondly are (Jawaharlal Nehru's) the "Glimpses of World History" and the "Discovery of India," he would recall long after his Aden days. "They were fat, big books but written in simple English and to me they opened a whole new world of adventure, of human wisdom and human folly. I began reading them not to learn of world history but to practice my English but once I opened their pages their breadth of vision had me in a thrall. I used to keep a dictionary by my side when reading these books and note down every new word I came across to increase my vocabulary. Later when I used to draft letters to ministers and senior officials during my early Bombay days, I used whole lot of quotations, phrases and impressive words from these two books."
He also gorged on dozens of books and magazine articles on psychology that became his favourite subject for a long time. "I learnt much from this class of my reading," he sometimes said, "I learnt how we humans and animals love to be loved more than anything else, how we are driven by desire to earn the love, affection and honor of those around us, what it is to be a leader, how to motivate those whom we want to attain great heights, how ideologies and interests clash and reconcile or cancel each other.
"More than anything else I learnt that nothing big can ever be achieved without money, influence and power and I also learnt that money, influence and power alone cannot achieve anything in life, big or small, without a certain soft, delicate, sensitive, understanding human touch in all one's deeds and words."
After he thought he had learnt the basics of commodities trading, Dhirubhai began speculating in high seas purchase and sales of all sorts of goods. He did not have enough money of his own for such speculative trading. So he borrowed as much as he could from friends and small Aden shopkeepers on terms nobody had ever offered them. "Profit we share and all loss will be mine" became his motto. During lunch break and after office hours he was always in the local bazaar, trading in one thing or the other.
Soon, those around him found that he had an uncanny knack for such speculative trading. He seldom lost money in any deal. "I think I had an animal instinct about such trading but there was a lot of reading and understanding of market trends behind that animal instinct of mine. I read every bit of paper I could lay my hands on about what was happening around the world, I listened carefully to every word uttered in the market, picked every bit of gossip in the shipping circles and pondered long through the night in the bed about the pros and cons of every deal I wanted to make."
Meantime, the Shell oil refinery and the first oil harbour came up in Aden in 1954, the year Dhirubhai returned home to Gujarat to marry Kokilaben. As expected, A. Besse & Co. became the agents for distribution of Shell refinery products. Dhirubhai had done well at the office during his first five years. Now he was sent on promotion to the oil filling station at the newly built harbour.
He liked the new job, though it was a lot more demanding than the desk job in the commodities section. Here he had to service the ships bunkering for diesel and lubricants. He enjoyed visiting the ships, making friends with sailors and the engine staff I heard from them first hand accounts of their voyages in different parts of the world of which he had until then read about only in books and magazines. And, here it was that he first began dreaming of one day building a refinery of his own.
"It was a crazy idea for a petrol pump attendant to want to build a refinery of his own, but that is the sort of crazy ideas I have been playing with all my life," Dhirubhai recalled at the time Reliance's 25-million ton oil refinery, the largest grassroots refinery in the world, went on stream in Jamnagar in 1999. "I have been able to build this refinery because I decided long years ago not to settle for anything else," he said, "I had heard a Yemeni proverb in Aden "la budd min Sana'a wa lau taal al-safr" (You must visit Sana'a, however long the journey takes). I never forgot that saying."
By the late 1950s it became clear that the British rule in Aden would not last long in the face of growing Yemeni movement for independence supported by Gamal Abdel Nasser's revolutionary government from across the Suez. The large Indian community of Hindu and Parsee Gujaratis began preparing to move out of Aden. Some began returning home to India, while some chose to settle in Britain. Aden Indians those days were allowed to settle in Britain.
Where to go on leaving Aden was debated among the colony's settlers heatedly everyday. Some of Dhirubhai's friends told him that he should migrate to London where, considering his talents, acumen and guts, he could find better opportunities of growth. At the port and on ships at Aden he often heard glowing accounts of post-war Britain and the promises of a life of much greater ease there than one could ever hope to find in India.
Dhirubhai weighed his options.. By now he had saved some money and was thinking of setting up some business of his own. Although Dhirubhai's father had died in 1952, he had in the meantime been blessed with his first son, Mukesh D. Ambani, in April, 1957. Kokilaben and Mukesh were back home in India.The choice of opening a shop somewhere in London was tempting but he felt India was calling him home.
Those were exciting years in India. The country was in the midst of implementing the second five-year Plan which promised to build big industries, raise new big dams across many rivers, lay new roads through the length and breadth of the country, boost agricultural production to new record levels and set up a huge network of food grains procurement centers.
Though by the end of 1958, the newspapers coming from India were painting a rather gloomy picture of the country's finances and foreign exchange reserves, there was also a new vigour and a new fervor in their reports of a new Rs 10,000-crore five-year Plan then under preparation. The Plan promised to open massive new opportunities for growth for the country's youth. Jawaharlal Nehru was daily exhorting the young to cast away their old ways and help build a new India. His words were stirring and roused the passions of every young Indian, especially of those living far away from the country.
Dhirubhai was now 26 years (1957), full of youthful vigour and vitality, and filled with high hopes for himself and for the new India of Nehru's dreams. He just could not miss the excitement of being in India in such tumultuous times. He decided to return home, instead of going to London to live a life of ease there.
Majin Commercial Corporation
Ten years later, Dhirubhai Ambani returned to India and started "Majin" in partnership with Champaklal Damani, his second cousin, who used to be with him in AdenAden
Aden is a seaport city in Yemen, located by the eastern approach to the Red Sea , some 170 kilometres east of Bab-el-Mandeb. Its population is approximately 800,000. Aden's ancient, natural harbour lies in the crater of an extinct volcano which now forms a peninsula, joined to the mainland by a...
, Yemen
Yemen
The Republic of Yemen , commonly known as Yemen , is a country located in the Middle East, occupying the southwestern to southern end of the Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the north, the Red Sea to the west, and Oman to the east....
. Majin was to import polyester yarn and export spices to Yemen. The first office of the Reliance Commercial Corporation was set up at the Narsinatha Street in Masjid Bunder
Masjid Bunder
Masjid is a railway station in South Mumbai on the Central line of the Mumbai Suburban Railway. It is the penultimate stop for all trains on the Central line in the "up" direction...
. It was 350 sq ft (32.5 m²). room with a telephone, one table and three chairs. Initially, they had two assistants to help them with their business. During this period, Dhirubhai and his family used to stay in a one bedroom apartment at the Jaihind Estate in Bhuleshwar, Mumbai
Mumbai
Mumbai , formerly known as Bombay in English, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the most populous city in India, and the fourth most populous city in the world, with a total metropolitan area population of approximately 20.5 million...
. In 1965, Champaklal Damani and Dhirubhai Ambani ended their partnership and Dhirubhai started on his own. It is believed that both had different temperament
Temperament
In psychology, temperament refers to those aspects of an individual's personality, such as introversion or extroversion, that are often regarded as innate rather than learned...
s and a different take on how to conduct business. While Mr. Damani was a cautious trader and did not believe in building yarn inventories, Dhirubhai was a known risk taker and he believed in building inventories, anticipating a price rise, and making profits. In 1968, he moved to an upmarket apartment at Altamount Road in South Mumbai
South Mumbai
South Mumbai , sometimes incorrectly referred to by English Media as "SoBo" , the southern-most precinct of the city of Mumbai, India, comprises the city's main business localities and its adjoining areas...
. Ambani's net worth was estimated at about Rs.10 lakh by late 1970s.
Reliance Textiles
Sensing a good opportunity in the textile business, Dhirubhai Ambani along with Amit Mehra, a Delhi based Chartered Accountant and Company Secretary residing in Ashok Vihar, Delhi started the first textile mill at NarodaNaroda
Naroda is a suburban town in Bapunagar, northeast of Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India. With the establishment of the Naroda Industrial Area in the 1980s, the town flourished; it was incorporated into Ahmedabad in 1996...
, in Ahmedabad
Ahmedabad
Ahmedabad also known as Karnavati is the largest city in Gujarat, India. It is the former capital of Gujarat and is also the judicial capital of Gujarat as the Gujarat High Court has its seat in Ahmedabad...
in the year 1966. Textiles were manufactured using polyester fibre yarn. Dhirubhai started the brand "Vimal", which was named after his elder brother Ramaniklal Ambani's son, Vimal Ambani. Extensive marketing of the brand "Vimal" in the interiors of India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
made it a household name. Franchise retail outlets were started and they used to sell "only Vimal" brand of textiles. In the year 1975, a Technical team from the World Bank
World Bank
The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans to developing countries for capital programmes.The World Bank's official goal is the reduction of poverty...
visited the Reliance Textiles' Manufacturing unit. This unit has the rare distinction of being certified as "excellent even by developed country standards" during that period. Amit Mehra had played a pivotal role in helping and supporting Dhirubhai in this success.
Initial public offering
Dhirubhai Ambani is awarded with starting the equity cult in India. More than 58,000 investors from various parts of India subscribed to Reliance's IPO in 1977. Dhiru bhai was able to convince large number of small investors from rural Gujarat that being shareholders of his company would be profitable.Reliance Industries
Reliance Industries
Reliance Industries Limited is an Indian conglomerate company headquartered at Mumbai, India. The company operates through three business segments: petrochemicals, refining, and oil and gas, other segment of the company includes textile, retail business, special economic zone development and...
was the first private sector company whose Annual General Meetings were held in stadium
Stadium
A modern stadium is a place or venue for outdoor sports, concerts, or other events and consists of a field or stage either partly or completely surrounded by a structure designed to allow spectators to stand or sit and view the event.)Pausanias noted that for about half a century the only event...
s. In 1986, The Annual General Meeting of Reliance Industries number of first-time retail investors to invest in Reliance. Ambani's net worth was estimated at about Rs.1 billion by early 1980s.
Dhirubhai's control over stock exchange
In 1982, Reliance Industries came up against a rights issue regarding partly convertible debentures. It was rumored that companyReliance Industries
Reliance Industries Limited is an Indian conglomerate company headquartered at Mumbai, India. The company operates through three business segments: petrochemicals, refining, and oil and gas, other segment of the company includes textile, retail business, special economic zone development and...
was making all efforts to ensure that their stock prices did not slide an inch. Sensing an opportunity, a bear cartel which was a group of stock brokers from Calcutta started to short sell the shares of Reliance. To counter this, a group of stock brokers till recently referred to as "Friends of Reliance" started to buy the short sold shares of Reliance Industries on the Bombay Stock Exchange
Bombay Stock Exchange
The Bombay Stock Exchange is a stock exchange located on Dalal Street, Mumbai and is the oldest stock exchange in Asia. The equity market capitalization of the companies listed on the BSE was 1.63 trillion as of December 2010, making it the 4th largest stock exchange in Asia and the 8th largest...
.
The Bear Cartel was acting on the belief that the Bulls
Market trends
A market trend is a putative tendency of a financial market to move in a particular direction over time. These trends are classified as secular for long time frames, primary for medium time frames, and secondary for short time frames...
would be short of cash to complete the transactions
and would be ready for settlement under the "Badla
Badla (stock trading)
Badla was an indigenous carry-forward system invented on the Bombay Stock Exchange as a solution to the perpetual lack of liquidity in the secondary market. Badla were banned by the Securities and Exchange Board of India or SEBI in 1993 , amid complaints from foreign investors, with the expectation...
" trading system operative in the Bombay Stock Exchange
Bombay Stock Exchange
The Bombay Stock Exchange is a stock exchange located on Dalal Street, Mumbai and is the oldest stock exchange in Asia. The equity market capitalization of the companies listed on the BSE was 1.63 trillion as of December 2010, making it the 4th largest stock exchange in Asia and the 8th largest...
. The bulls kept on buying and a price of Rs. 152 per share was maintained till the day of settlement. On the day of settlement, the Bear Cartel was taken aback when the Bulls demanded a physical delivery of shares. To complete the transaction, the much needed cash was provided to the stock brokers who had bought shares of Reliance, by none other than Dhirubhai Ambani. In the case of non-settlement, the Bulls demanded an "Unbadla" (a penalty sum) of Rs.
Indian rupee
The Indian rupee is the official currency of the Republic of India. The issuance of the currency is controlled by the Reserve Bank of India....
35 per share. With this, the demand increased and the shares of Reliance shot above 180 rupees in minutes. The settlement caused an enormous uproar in the market.
To find a solution to this situation, the Bombay Stock Exchange was closed for three business days. Authorities from the Bombay Stock Exchange
Bombay Stock Exchange
The Bombay Stock Exchange is a stock exchange located on Dalal Street, Mumbai and is the oldest stock exchange in Asia. The equity market capitalization of the companies listed on the BSE was 1.63 trillion as of December 2010, making it the 4th largest stock exchange in Asia and the 8th largest...
(BSE) intervened in the matter and brought down the "Unbadla" rate to Rs. 2 with a stipulation that the Bear Cartel had to deliver the shares within the next few days. The Bear Cartel bought shares of Reliance from the market at higher price levels and it was also learnt that Dhirubhai Ambani himself supplied those shares to the Bear Cartel and earned a healthy profit out of The Bear Cartel's adventure.
After this incident, many questions were raised by his detractors and the press. Not many people were able to understand as to how a yarn trader till a few years ago was able to get in such a huge amount of cash flow during a crisis period. The answer to this was provided by the then finance minister, Pranab Mukherjee
Pranab Mukherjee
Pranab Kumar Mukherjee is the current Finance Minister of India and leader of the current Lok Sabha.Mukherjee is a senior member of the Cabinet Committees on Economic Affairs, Infrastructure, Parliamentary Affairs, Political Affairs, Prices, Security, Unique Identification Authority of India,...
in the parliament. He informed the house that a Non-Resident Indian had invested up to Rs.
Indian rupee
The Indian rupee is the official currency of the Republic of India. The issuance of the currency is controlled by the Reserve Bank of India....
22 Crore in Reliance during 1982-83. These investments were routed through many companies like Crocodile, Lota and Fiasco. These companies were primarily registered in Isle of Man
Isle of Man
The Isle of Man , otherwise known simply as Mann , is a self-governing British Crown Dependency, located in the Irish Sea between the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, within the British Isles. The head of state is Queen Elizabeth II, who holds the title of Lord of Mann. The Lord of Mann is...
. The interesting factor was that all the promoters or owners of these companies had a common surname Shah
Shah
Shāh is the title of the ruler of certain Southwest Asian and Central Asian countries, especially Persia , and derives from the Persian word shah, meaning "king".-History:...
. An investigation by the Reserve Bank of India
Reserve Bank of India
The Reserve Bank of India is the central banking institution of India and controls the monetary policy of the rupee as well as US$300.21 billion of currency reserves. The institution was established on 1 April 1935 during the British Raj in accordance with the provisions of the Reserve Bank of...
in the incident did not find any unethical or illegal acts or transactions committed by Reliance or its promoters.
Diversification
In Ambani began the process of backward integration, setting up a plant to manufacture polyester filament yarn. He subsequently diversified into chemicals, petrochemicals, plastics, power. The company as a whole was described by the BBC as "a business empire with an estimated annual turnover of $12bn, and an 85,000-strong workforce".The final phase of Reliance’s diversification occurred in the 1990s when the company turned aggressively towards petrochemicals and telecommunications.
Criticism
Despite his almost Midas Touch, Ambani has been known to have flexible values and an unethical streak running through him. His biographer himself has cited some instances of his unethical behavior when he was just an ordinary employee at a petrol pump in Dubai. He has been accused of having manipulated government policies to suit his own needs, and has been known to be a king-maker in government elections. Although most media sources tend to speak out about business-politics nexus, the Ambani house has always enjoyed more protection and shelter from the media storms that sweep across the country.Tussle with Nusli Wadia
Nusli Wadia
Nusli Wadia is an Indian Parsi entrepreneur, a textile magnate and an important person in the real-estate business. He is the son of Neville and Dina Wadia. His mother Dina Wadia is the daughter of Muhammad Ali Jinnah....
Nusli Wadia
Nusli Wadia
Nusli Wadia is an Indian Parsi entrepreneur, a textile magnate and an important person in the real-estate business. He is the son of Neville and Dina Wadia. His mother Dina Wadia is the daughter of Muhammad Ali Jinnah....
of Bombay Dyeing
Bombay Dyeing
Bombay Dyeing is the flagship company of the Wadia Group, engaged mainly into the business of Textiles...
was, at one point in time, the biggest competitor of Dhirubhai and Reliance Industries
Reliance Industries
Reliance Industries Limited is an Indian conglomerate company headquartered at Mumbai, India. The company operates through three business segments: petrochemicals, refining, and oil and gas, other segment of the company includes textile, retail business, special economic zone development and...
. Both Nusli Wadia and Dhirubhai were known for their influence in the political circles and their ability to get the most difficult licenses approved during the times of pre-liberalized economy.
During the Janata Party
Janata Party
The Janata Party was an amalgam of Indian political parties opposed to the state of emergency imposed by the government of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and her Indian National Congress...
rule between 1977 - 1979, Nusli Wadia obtained the permission to build a 60,000 tonnes per annum Dimethyl terephthalate
Dimethyl terephthalate
Dimethyl terephthalate is an organic compound with the formula C6H42. It is the diester formed from terephthalic acid and methanol. It is a white solid that melts to give a distillable colourless liquid.-Production:...
(DMT) plant. Before the letter of intent was converted into a licence, many hurdles came in the way. Finally, in 1981, Nusli Wadia was granted the license for the plant. This incident acted as a catalyst between the two parties and the competition took an ugly turn.
The Indian Express Articles
At one point in time, Ramnath Goenka
Ramnath Goenka
Ramnath Goenka was a newspaper baron of India. He launched The Indian Express and created the Indian Express Group with various English and regional language publications...
was a friend of Dhirubhai Ambani. Ramnath Goenka was also considered to be close to Nusli Wadia
Nusli Wadia
Nusli Wadia is an Indian Parsi entrepreneur, a textile magnate and an important person in the real-estate business. He is the son of Neville and Dina Wadia. His mother Dina Wadia is the daughter of Muhammad Ali Jinnah....
. On many occasions, Ramnath Goenka tried to intervene between the two warring factions and bring an end to the enmity. Goenka and Ambani became rivals mainly because Ambani's corrupt business practices and his illegal actions that lead to Goenka not getting a fair share in the company. Later on, Ramnath Goenka chose to support Nusli Wadia. At one point of time, Ramnath Goenka is believed to have said "Nusli is an Englishman. He cannot handle Ambani. I am a bania. I know how to finish him"....
As days passed by, The Indian Express
The Indian Express
The Indian Express is an Indian English-language daily newspaper. It is published in Mumbai by Indian Express Group. After Ramnath Goenka's death in 1991, the group was split in 1999 among his family members into two with the southern editions taking the name The New Indian Express, while the old...
, a broadsheet daily published by him, carried a series of articles against Reliance Industries and Dhirubhai in which they claimed that Dhirubhai was using unfair trade practices to maximise the profits. Ramnath Goenka did not use his staff at the Indian Express to investigate the case but assigned his close confidante, advisor and chartered accountant S. Gurumurthy
S. Gurumurthy
Swaminathan Gurumurthy is the co-convenor of the Swadeshi Jagaran Manch, a journalist and a chartered accountant in India, and an RSS idealogue...
for this task. Apart from S. Gurumurthy, another journalist Maneck Davar who was not on the rolls of Indian Express started contributing stories. Jamnadas Moorjani, a businessman opposed to the Ambanis was also a part of this campaign.
Both Ambani and Goenka were equally criticized and admired by sections of the society. People criticized Goenka that he was using a national newspaper for the cause of a personal enmity. Critics believed that there were many other businessman in the country who were using more unfair and unethical practices but Goenka chose to target only Ambani and not the others. Critics also admired Goenka for his ability to run these articles without any help from his regular staff. Dhirubhai Ambani was also getting more recognition and admiration, in the meantime. A section of the public started to appreciate Dhirubhai's business sense and his ability to tame the system according to his wishes.
The end to this tussle came only after Dhirubhai Ambani suffered a stroke. While Dhirubhai Ambani was recovering in San Diego, his sons Mukesh Ambani
Mukesh Ambani
Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambani is an Indian business magnate. He is the chairman and managing director of Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries, the largest private sector enterprise in India listed in Fortune 500 magazine. His personal stake in Reliance Industries is 48%...
and Anil Ambani
Anil Ambani
Anil Dhirubhai Ambani is an Indian-Gujarati business baron and chairman of Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, one of the largest private conglomerates. Anil's elder brother, Mukesh Ambani, is worth more than 29 billion dollars, and owns another company called Reliance Industries...
managed the affairs. The Indian Express had turned the guns against Reliance and was directly blaming the government for not doing enough to penalize Reliance Industries. The battle between Wadia - Goenka and the Ambanis took a new direction and became a national crisis. Gurumurthy and another journalist, Mulgaokar consorted with President
President of India
The President of India is the head of state and first citizen of India, as well as the Supreme Commander of the Indian Armed Forces. President of India is also the formal head of all the three branches of Indian Democracy - Legislature, Executive and Judiciary...
Giani Zail Singh and ghost-wrote
Ghostwriter
A ghostwriter is a professional writer who is paid to write books, articles, stories, reports, or other texts that are officially credited to another person. Celebrities, executives, and political leaders often hire ghostwriters to draft or edit autobiographies, magazine articles, or other written...
a hostile letter to the Prime Minister
Prime Minister of India
The Prime Minister of India , as addressed to in the Constitution of India — Prime Minister for the Union, is the chief of government, head of the Council of Ministers and the leader of the majority party in parliament...
on his behalf. The Indian Express published a draft of the President’s letter as a scoop, not realizing that Zail Singh had made changes to the letter before sending it to Rajiv Gandhi. Ambani had won the battle at this point. Now, while the tussle was directly between the Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Ramnath Goenka, Ambani made a quiet exit. The government then raided the Express guest house in Delhi
Delhi
Delhi , officially National Capital Territory of Delhi , is the largest metropolis by area and the second-largest by population in India, next to Mumbai. It is the eighth largest metropolis in the world by population with 16,753,265 inhabitants in the Territory at the 2011 Census...
’s Sunder Nagar and found the original draft with corrections in Mulgaokar’s handwriting. By 1988-89, Rajiv’s government retaliated with a series of prosecutions against the Indian Express. Even then, Goenka retained his iconic stature because, to many people, he seemed to be replaying his heroic defiance during the Emergency regime.
Dhirubhai and V. P. Singh
V. P. Singh
Vishwanath Pratap Singh was the seventh Prime Minister of India and the 41st Raja Bahadur of Manda.-Early life:...
It was widely known that Dhirubhai didn't enjoy a cordial relation with Vishwanath Pratap Singh, who succeeded Rajiv Gandhi
Rajiv Gandhi
Rajiv Ratna Gandhi was the sixth Prime Minister of India . He took office after his mother's assassination on 31 October 1984; he himself was assassinated on 21 May 1991. He became the youngest Prime Minister of India when he took office at the age of 40.Rajiv Gandhi was the elder son of Indira...
as the Prime Minister of India
Prime Minister of India
The Prime Minister of India , as addressed to in the Constitution of India — Prime Minister for the Union, is the chief of government, head of the Council of Ministers and the leader of the majority party in parliament...
. In May 1985, he suddenly removed the import of Purified terephthalic acid from the Open General License category. As a raw material this was very important to manufacture polyester filament yarn. This made it very difficult for Reliance to carry on operations. Reliance was able to secure, from various financial institutions, letters of credit that would allow it to import almost one full year’s requirement of PTA on the eve of the issuance of the government notification, changing the category under which PTA could be imported. In 1990, the government-owned financial institutions like the Life Insurance Corporation of India
Life Insurance Corporation of India
The Life Insurance Corporation of India is the largest state-owned life insurance company in India, and also the country's largest investor. It is fully owned by the Government of India. It also funds close to 24.6% of the Indian Government's expenses. It has assets estimated of...
and the General Insurance Corporation of India
General Insurance Corporation of India
General Insurance Corporation of India is the sole reinsurance company in the Indian insurance market with over three decades of experience.GIC has its registered office and headquarters in Mumbai.-History:...
stonewalled attempts by the Reliance group to acquire managerial control over Larsen & Toubro
Larsen & Toubro
Larsen & Toubro Limited is an Indian multinational conglomerate company headquartered in Mumbai, India. The company has four main business sectors: technology, engineering, construction and manufacturing. L&T has an international presence, with a global spread of offices and factories, further...
. Sensing defeat, the Ambanis resigned from the board of the company. Dhirubhai, who had become L&T's chairman in April 1989, had to quit his post to make way for D. N. Ghosh, former chairman of the State Bank of India
State Bank of India
The State Bank of India is the largest Indian banking and financial services company with its headquarters in Mumbai, India. It is state-owned. The bank traces its ancestry to British India, through the Imperial Bank of India, to the founding in 1806 of the Bank of Calcutta, making it the oldest...
.
Death
Mumbai
Mumbai , formerly known as Bombay in English, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the most populous city in India, and the fourth most populous city in the world, with a total metropolitan area population of approximately 20.5 million...
on June 24, 2002 after he suffered a major stroke. This was his second stroke. The first one had occurred in February, 1986 and had kept his right hand paralyzed. He was, latterly, in a state of coma for more than a week. A number of doctors were used. He died on July 6, 2002, at around 11:50 p.m. (Indian Standard Time).
His funeral procession was not only attended by business people, politicians and celebrities but also by thousands of ordinary people. His elder son, Mukesh Ambani
Mukesh Ambani
Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambani is an Indian business magnate. He is the chairman and managing director of Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries, the largest private sector enterprise in India listed in Fortune 500 magazine. His personal stake in Reliance Industries is 48%...
, performed the last rites as per Hindu
Hindu
Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...
traditions. He was cremated at the Chandanwadi Crematorium in Mumbai at around 4:30 PM (Indian Standard Time) on July 7, 2002.
He is survived by Kokilaben Ambani, his wife, two sons, Mukesh Ambani
Mukesh Ambani
Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambani is an Indian business magnate. He is the chairman and managing director of Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries, the largest private sector enterprise in India listed in Fortune 500 magazine. His personal stake in Reliance Industries is 48%...
and Anil Ambani
Anil Ambani
Anil Dhirubhai Ambani is an Indian-Gujarati business baron and chairman of Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, one of the largest private conglomerates. Anil's elder brother, Mukesh Ambani, is worth more than 29 billion dollars, and owns another company called Reliance Industries...
, and two daughters, Nina Kothari and Deepti Salgaonkar. Dhirubhai Ambani started his long journey in Mumbai
Mumbai
Mumbai , formerly known as Bombay in English, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the most populous city in India, and the fourth most populous city in the world, with a total metropolitan area population of approximately 20.5 million...
from the Mulji-Jetha Textile Market, where he started as a small-trader. As a mark of respect to this great businessman, The Mumbai Textile Merchants' decided to keep the market closed on July 8, 2002. At the time of Dhirubhai's death, Reliance Group had a gross turnover of Rs.
Indian rupee
The Indian rupee is the official currency of the Republic of India. The issuance of the currency is controlled by the Reserve Bank of India....
75,000 Crore or USD $ 15 Billion. In 1976-77, the Reliance group had an annual turnover of Rs 70 crore and it is to be remembered that Dhirubhai had started the business with just Rs.
Indian rupee
The Indian rupee is the official currency of the Republic of India. The issuance of the currency is controlled by the Reserve Bank of India....
1,50,000 (US$3500)
Reliance after Dhirubhai
In November 2004, Mukesh Ambani in an interview, admitted to having differences with his brother Anil over 'ownership issues.' He also said that the differences "are in the private domain." He was of the opinion that this will not have any bearing on the functioning of the company saying Reliance is one of the strongest professionally-managed companies. Considering the importance of Reliance Industries to the Indian economy, this issue and got an extensive coverage in the media.Kundapur Vaman Kamath
K. V. Kamath
Kundapur Vaman Kamath is the Chairman of Infosys Limited, the second-largest IT services company in India, and Non-Executive Chairman of ICICI Bank, India's largest private bank. Mr...
, the Managing Director of ICICI Bank
ICICI Bank
ICICI Bank Ltd. is India's second largest financial services company headquartered in Mumbai, India. It offers a wide range of banking products and financial services to corporate and retail customers through a variety of delivery channels and through its specialised subsidiaries in the areas of...
was seen in media, a close friend of the Ambani family who helped to settle the issue. The brothers had entrusted their mother, Kokilaben Ambani, to resolve the issue. On June 18, 2005, Kokilaben Ambani announced the settlement through a press release.
The Reliance empire was split between the Ambani brothers,
Mukesh Ambani
Mukesh Ambani
Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambani is an Indian business magnate. He is the chairman and managing director of Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries, the largest private sector enterprise in India listed in Fortune 500 magazine. His personal stake in Reliance Industries is 48%...
getting RIL and IPCL & his younger sibling Anil Ambani
Anil Ambani
Anil Dhirubhai Ambani is an Indian-Gujarati business baron and chairman of Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, one of the largest private conglomerates. Anil's elder brother, Mukesh Ambani, is worth more than 29 billion dollars, and owns another company called Reliance Industries...
heading Reliance Capital, Reliance Energy and Reliance Infocomm. The entity headed by Mukesh Ambani is referred to as the Reliance Industries Limited whereas Anil's Group has been renamed Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (Reliance ADA Group).
Reliance Institute of Life Sciences
Reliance Institute of Life Sciences
Reliance Institute of Life Sciences , established by Dhirubhai Ambani Foundation, is an institution of higher education in various fields of life sciences and related technologies.-About:...
, a Dhirubhai Ambani Foundation Initiative, was established to promote higher education in various fields of life sciences and related technologies.
In popular media
In 1998, a book published by Hamish McDonaldHamish McDonald
Hamish McDonald is a print journalist and author of a series of polemic political commentaries on various Asia-Pacific subjects. He is currently based in Beijing as correspondent for The Age-Career:...
titled "The Polyester Prince" is also an unauthorised biography of Dhirubhai Ambani, outlining all his political and business conquests. HarperCollins didn't sell the book in India, because the Dirubhai threatened legal action. As of 2010, Amazon.com listed the price book at >400.
A film said to be inspired by the life of Dhirubhai Ambani was released on 12 January 2007. The Hindi Film Guru, directed by ace filmmaker Mani Ratnam
Mani Ratnam
Mani Ratnam is an Indian filmmaker, screenwriter and producer. He made his directorial debut with the Kannada film Pallavi Anu Pallavi starring Anil Kapoor in 1983...
, cinematography by Rajiv Menon
Rajiv Menon
Rajiv Menon is an Indian cinematographer and film maker. He is known for directing critically acclaimed Tamil films like Minsaara Kanavu and Kandukondain Kandukondain.-Early Life:...
and music by A.R.Rahman shows the struggle of a man striving to make his mark in the Indian business world with a fictional Shakti Group of Industries. The film stars Abhishek Bachchan
Abhishek Bachchan
Abhishek Bachchan is an Indian actor and producer. He is the son of Indian actors Amitabh Bachchan and Jaya Bachchan and is married to actress and former Miss World Aishwarya Rai....
, Mithun Chakraborty
Mithun Chakraborty
Mithun Chakraborty is an Indian film actor, social activist, and entrepreneur, who has won three National Film Awards. He made his acting debut with the arthouse drama Mrigaya , for which he won his first National Film Award for Best Actor....
, Aishwarya Rai
Aishwarya Rai
Aishwarya Rai Bachchan is an Indian film actress. She worked as a model before starting her acting career, and ultimately won the Miss World pageant in 1994...
, R. Madhavan
R. Madhavan
R. Madhavan is an Indian actor, writer, film producer and television host. Madhavan has received a Filmfare Award, an award from the Tamil Nadu State Film Awards alongside recognition and nominations from other organisations...
and Vidya Balan
Vidya Balan
Vidya Balan is an Indian actress, who appears in Hindi films. After graduating with a degree in sociology, she started her career starring in music videos, television shows and commercials, before appearing in feature films....
. In the film, Abhishek Bachchan plays Guru Kant Desai, a character implicitly based on Dhirubhai Ambani. The character is known in the film as "GURUBHAI", similar to the real-life "DHIRUBHAI." Mithun Chakraborty portrays Manikda who bears an uncanny resemblance to the real life Ramanath Goenka
Ramnath Goenka
Ramnath Goenka was a newspaper baron of India. He launched The Indian Express and created the Indian Express Group with various English and regional language publications...
and Madhvan portrays S. Gurumurthy
S. Gurumurthy
Swaminathan Gurumurthy is the co-convenor of the Swadeshi Jagaran Manch, a journalist and a chartered accountant in India, and an RSS idealogue...
, who gained national fame twenty years ago, spearheading virulent attacks against the Reliance group in one of India's bloodiest corporate wars ever.
In 2010, an updated version of the book went on sale in India, called Ambani and Sons, there has been no legal action against the publisher so far.
Awards and recognitions
- November 2000 – Conferred 'Man Of The Century' award by Chemtech Foundation and Chemical Engineering World in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the growth and development of the chemical industry in IndiaIndiaIndia , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
- 2000, 1998 and 1996 – Featured among 'Power 50 - the most powerful people in AsiaAsiaAsia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
by AsiaweekAsiaweekAsiaweek, the English edition, was a news magazine focusing on Asia, published weekly by Asiaweek Limited, a subsidiary of Time Inc. Based in Hong Kong, it was established in 1975, and ceased publication with its December 7, 2001 issue due to a "downturn in the advertising market," according to...
magazine. - June 1998 - Dean's Medal by The Wharton School, University of PennsylvaniaWharton School of the University of PennsylvaniaThe Wharton School is the business school of the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Wharton was the world’s first collegiate business school and the first business school in the United States...
, for setting an outstanding example of leadership. Dhirubhai Ambani has the rare distinction of being the first Indian to get Wharton School Dean's Medal - August 2001 – Economic Times AwardsEconomic Times AwardsThe Economic Times Awards for Corporate Excellence are the awards conferred by The Economic Times in the field of business, corporate and government policies, economies in India...
for Corporate Excellence for Lifetime Achievement - Dhirubhai Ambani was named the Man of 20th Century by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and IndustryFICCIThe Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry is an association of business organizations in India, headquartered in the national capital New Delhi. FICCI is one of the main organizations to fund and support many governmental and non-governmental educational institutes...
(FICCI). - A poll conducted by The Times of India in 2000 voted Him "Greatest Creator of Wealth In The Centuries".
External links
- Founder Chairman, Reliance
- Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology
- "Remembering the Prince of Polyester," Time Magazine, 15 July 2002
- Dhirubhai Ambani in Memoriam, Rediff.com
- Dhirubhai Ambani from peopleforever.org
- Dhirubhai Ambani from dhirubhai.net
- "The Polyester Prince: Hamish McDonald
- Dhirubhai Ambani addressing at the ChemTech Foundation - PharmaBiz.com - Thursday, January 23, 2003
- Dhirubhai gave management a whole new 'ism' A.G. Krishnamurthy on Rediff.com
- Great lessons from Dhrirubhai Ambani A.G. Krishnamurthy on Rediff.com
- Mukesh Ambani Son of Late Sh. Dhirubhai Ambani
Dhirubhai Ambani The Wealth Creator of India (Presentation by http://www.techite.com/ )