According to sources close to the brothers, Ambani matriarch Kokilaben last week intervened for the second time in a year to prevent her squabbling sons landing the family firm in court, after Anil accused older brother Mukesh of fraud during the tortured demerger of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL).
Reliance is India’s most important domestic company and has played a significant role in the country’s recent emergence as an economic powerhouse. Its founder Dhirubhai, the feuding brothers’ father, is famous in India. He started out as a petrol pump attendant in the Middle East, returned with 15,000 rupees (£194) and went on to create one of the top 200 most profitable companies in the world.
Today it owns the country’s largest mobile communications network, and its businesses span oil and gas exploration and production, textiles, financial services, power and insurance.
Kokilaben, Dhirubhai’s widow, brokered a settlement in June last year after the feud between Mukesh and Anil reached a new low as leaks by the rival camps threatened to embroil the company in scandal.
Under the deal, Mukesh would keep control of RIL, but four companies in the group would be demerged and given over to Anil’s new Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG). Anil’s share included the group’s gas (Reliance Natural Resources Ltd), telecoms and mobile (Reliance Communications Ventures Ltd), coal (Reliance Energy Ventures Ltd) and financial services (Reliance Capital Ventures Ltd), estimated collectively to represent around 25% of RIL’s $22 billion (£12.6 billion) value. It also included India’s biggest mobile telephone operator, Reliance Infocomm.
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According to sources close to the family this latest public row centres on continuing attempts by the brothers to increase their share of the deal, with special focus on the the telecoms business which is widely believed to be significantly undervalued in the settlement.
The row reignited last week with Anil’s supporters accusing Mukesh of fraud in stalling the completion of the share transfer agreed in the demerger settlement in June last year. A series of legal notices were sent to share transfer agents complaining that RIL was undermining the irrevocable power of attorney granted to Anil under the deal.
Mukesh’s supporters denied the claim and said all shares had long been transferred to Anil’s group, and that the allegations were a smokescreen for Anil’s failure to publicly list his new companies.
Meanwhile, Mukesh’s supporters highlighted claims that Anil was stalling the listing process to maximise his stake in the undervalued Reliance Infocomm.
Anil owns 35% of Reliance Infocomm, and 35% of Reliance Communications, which in turn owns the remaining 65% of Infocomm. Analysts believe Anil may be planning to merge the two companies which would give him a 61% controlling interest in the new company.
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If this is the case, Anil could overtake Mukesh as the third richest Indian in the world (after Lakshmi Mittal and Azim Premji), and contradict the claim that sparked the feud: according to analysts, Mukesh believed his brother to be more of a playboy than a businessman.
According to financial commentator Alam Srinivas, Mukesh felt Anil had shown poor judgment in becoming close friends with controversial Indian socialist leader Amer Singh, and his public outings with Bollywood legend Amitabh Bachchan. He felt this flamboyant image did not sit well with the Reliance brand.
“Mukesh thought that after the father’s death, Anil would fritter away the family gold, spend money on projects that were not profitable, and do things to the benefit of others. Mukesh tried to take control of the whole of Reliance by getting Anil out of the ownership structure. At that stage, Anil rebelled,” said Srinivas.
“It was always obvious that they would not be able to work together, which is why when their father was alive he separated their responsibilities. Mukesh became the builder of the empire, the one who was given charge of implementation of mega projects. Anil became the public face of the group, dealing with the policy-makers, meeting bureaucrats. He was also the finance whiz-kid.”
Within six months of their father’s death in 2002, according to Sriniwas, the brothers had already appointed nominees to discuss the eventual break-up of the company.
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The feud which erupted when Anil realised his brother was manoeuvring against him quickly began to unsettle shareholders and politicians alike. At one point, both India’s finance minister and Sonia Gandhi, the power behind the current Congress-led government, intervened to broker a truce.
Their different styles and political alliances — Anil is an independent MP but seems as close to Singh’s Samajwadi socialists — are cited by some in their contrasting fortunes in government dealings recently.
Senior officials praise Mukesh’s RIL as a potential flag-carrier for an Indian supermarket chain to rival any ventures by Tesco and Wal-Mart when the Indian retail sector is opened to foreign direct investment.
But Anil’s group was overlooked in the contest to build international airports for Delhi and Bombay.
While his political influence has waned, however, his relationship with his mother seems better than ever. According to Srinivas, his mother moved closer to the younger son she always had a softer spot for when she was shown evidence of Mukesh’s manoeuvrings last year.
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Earlier this week, Anil was with his mother and trusted friends the Bachchans and Amer Singh at a family gathering.
Singh told The Sunday Times: “For Anil, his mother is very important. He told me: ‘If she told me to leave everything, I would not ask for a penny. I owe my life, everything to my mother.’
“Their mother has played a key role. She’s a special kind of woman, and they have listened to her on everything because there’s love and affection.”
The financial worth of that love will become clear when Anil finally reveals whether Reliance Infocomm will be merged into the telecommunications company, and how the market values it.
Only then will Mukesh know if he has underestimated his brother.