Storms in the Sea Wind: Ambani vs Ambani

Alam Srinivas

Description

Did Dhirubhai Ambani know about the tensions between his two sons, Mukesh and Anil? Did the patriarch merge RIL and Reliance Petroleum to prevent a future split in the Reliance group? What were the reasons for the frenetic growth of the Ambanis in just about three decades and the subsequent division in less than three years after Dhirubhai's death? What were Dhirubhai's traits that kept the Ambani family together? What were the differences in Mukesh's and Anil's personalities that led to their falling apart? Did mother Kokilaben play a role in bringing about a 'truce' between her two sons? How was the war between Mukesh and Anil fought? Why does the fight continue today even after the 'truce' between the two brothers? A blow-by-blow account of the Ambani saga by noted business journalist Alam Srinivas, who has tracked the Reliance group for twenty years.

Sujets

• Biography
• Dhirubhai Ambani
• Ambani
• Reliance
• Anil Ambani
• Business
• Mukesh Ambani
• Family
• Autobiography
• Saga

Informations

• Publié par: Roli Books
• Date de parution: 01 juillet 2005
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9789351940791
• Langue: English

Extrait

About the Book
Did Dhirubhai Ambani know about the tensions between his two sons, Mukesh and Anil? Did the patriarch merge RIL and Reliance Petroleum to prevent a future split in the Reliance group? What were the reasons for the frenetic growth of the Ambanis in just about three decades and the subsequent division in less than three years after Dhirubhai’s death? What were Dhirubhai’s traits that kept the Ambani family together? What were the differences in Mukesh’s and Anil’s personalities that led to their falling apart? Did mother Kokilaben play a role in bringing about a ‘truce’ between her two sons? How was the war between Mukesh and Anil fought? Why does the fight continue today even after the ‘truce’ between the two brothers?
A blow-by-blow account of the Ambani saga by noted business journalist Alam Srinivas, who has tracked the Reliance group for twenty years.
STORMS IN THE SEA WIND


In his twenty–year career as a journalist, Alam Srinivas, Business Editor, Outlook, has worked for premier Indian publications like The Times of India, Businessworld, India Today and Business Today. He has focused on investigative pieces exposing corporate corruption and the nexus between big business and politics. Since 1986, he has written dozens of articles on the Reliance group and the various controversies that gripped the Ambani family. He lives in Delhi.

ROLI BOOKS
This digital edition published in 2015
First published in 2005 by The Lotus Collection An Imprint of Roli Books Pvt. Ltd M-75, Greater Kailash- II Market New Delhi 110 048 Phone: ++91 (011) 40682000 Email: [e-mail] Website: www.rolibooks.com
Copyright © Alam Srinivas, 2005
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eISBN: 978-93-5194-079-1
Front & Back Cover Photos: courtesy Outlook Cover Design: Arati Subramanyam
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To Rama who was the only one convinced that I had a book in me
Contents

Introduction: A New Beginning
Dramatis Personnae
1 The Cloak-and-Dagger Tale
2 A Tale of Two Truths
3 Lifting the Veil
4 Infocomm or Info-Bomb
5 Riding the RIL Tiger
6 Anatomy of a Split
7 Dhirubhai’s Legacy
8 The Future of Business Families
9 Epilogue: End of an Era
Introduction

A New Beginning
‘T he bubble is about to burst.’ For nearly twenty years, at regular intervals, I had heard this comment from insiders in the Reliance group, as well as its numerous enemies. I was myself guilty of reiterating it in discussions and reflecting it in some of the stories that I had written on the Ambani family, which owned the Rs 100,000 crore Reliance empire.
The bubble not only remained intact, it kept growing ever bigger in strength, stature and power. However, events of the past few months – actually, since November 2004 – almost made this prediction come true. It took someone within the family to rock the foundations on which the House of Ambanis was built – both their permanent residence at Mumbai’s Sea Wind and their business headquarters at Maker Chambers IV in the city’s crowded Nariman Point.
Ever since the patriarch, Dhirubhai Ambani, died in July 2002, there were rumours of tensions between his two sons, Mukesh and Anil. In January 2004, a senior Reliance manager himself confirmed this to me and added that the brothers were on the verge of a split. He promised to provide the details at our next meeting.
I was delighted. This would be my big moment. I could scoop the biggest story in India’s corporate history – the owners of India’s largest private sector company, Reliance Industries Ltd. (RIL), and the largest group, were about to part ways and divide the pie. (Until then, in a few TV shows, the two brothers had emphasized that all was well between them.)
Alas, my big moment wasn’t meant to be. My Reliance source backtracked the next day. At our next meeting, he simply said that there was no truth to what he had told me earlier. I was disappointed by this dishonest U-turn. However, I knew there was something in the air.
My journalistic antennae were up again in mid-2004, when T he Times of India carried a puzzling piece on its front page. It had no names – either of people or companies or groups; it did not have a byline. But it talked about tensions between brothers, who owned one of the largest business groups in India. It spoke of tensions between the wives of these brothers. In general, it hinted at something spectacular in this group – something like a split. Ordinary readers may not have been able to decipher the secret message; but journalists knew that the TOI was referring to the Mumbai-based Reliance group and the two Ambani brothers.
In Outlook ’s edit meetings, we discussed the TOI story. We debated whether we should pursue it and do a larger piece in the magazine. Finally, we let it be; we concluded that unless we could get someone who would say it on record, or unearth some evidence, we would be speculating about it and sound as pointless as the TOI. My investigations continued. I kept cajoling all my Reliance sources. (I had several of them as I had been covering the group since 1986 when the corpo-political tussle between Dhirubhai’s Reliance and Nusli Wadia’s Bombay Dyeing was at its height.) But all in vain.
Then, on 18 November 2004, the Ambani explosion was heard across the country. The previous night, on 17 November, Mukesh gave a detonating sound bite to CNBC-TV 18. He told the TV channel that there were some ownership issues in the Reliance group but ‘these are in the private domain, and as far as Reliance is concerned, it is a very, very strong professional company.’ The cat was out of the bag. Everyone understood the implication of those words. Mukesh could have ownership issues with only one family member, his younger brother Anil. After all, the two brothers owned the group after their father’s death; only they could have issues relating to ownership.
In a subsequent clarification, Mukesh claimed that there were no ownership issues, that they were settled during Dhirubhai’s lifetime. But he was sending a clear message: he was the owner, he was the boss, and Reliance was his.
Obviously, Anil could not take that lying down. He decided to go to war. He took to the street armed with dozens of allegations against his elder brother. He behaved as if he had only one priority: to destroy Mukesh and, in the process, demolish the Reliance group as well as himself. He became like a man possessed, who had nothing to lose – and everything to gain. As days progressed, and the battle escalated, one realized that it did not matter to Anil as to who was getting hit and falling by the wayside. He was fighting for his life – and his future.
In his own way, Mukesh retaliated. Armed with his battery of advisors and loyalists, he tried to atomize Anil. It was unlike any other corporate war. It was fierce, violent, cruel, bloodthirsty and savage. No rules applied here: character assassinations, charges of personal and corporate corruption, of political nexus and business blunders were part of this battle.
Anil raised issues of corporate governance, corporate ethics, personal morals, business strategies and basic values against his elder brother. Mukesh let it be known that Anil lacked business acumen, had a playboyish image and was disinterested in family businesses. And there were a host of loyalists, advisors, friends, professionals and aides who were giving their own spin to the events. All this led inexorably to a division of India’s Inc’s first family, which took place on 18 June 2005.
This book is a blow-by-blow account of the war between Mukesh and Anil. It provides a perspective not only on the fast moving events of the last seven months but also examines the genesis of the differences between the two brothers – how their personalities and later, their spouses, widened the gulf between them. In addition, it is about the mindsets and thought processes that governed the cast of characters – why they did or said what they did, what their motives and objectives were, whether everything was planned and deliberate, and how egos and personality clashes influenced events.
Finally, it is about information that never became public. Most journalists who reported on the Ambanis were allied to one side or the other. For months, what you read or heard were biased versions. The truth was lost; those who were reporting on the issue deliberately left out crucial information. This book is actually an attempt to reveal all the details – sensitive, critical or sensational – that a number of players would not want to become public or known to the other side (even today).
Anil’s allegations were, at one level, simple enough. His elder brother had ‘used’ RIL to finance his personal ambitions; in many ways, RIL – the flagship of the group, the cash cow and the publicly-listed firm with millions of shareholders – had been ‘unfairly used’ for personal gains. So Anil raised a number of corporate governance issues; he also circulated a 500-page report on it in relevant political, regulatory and corporate quarters. Anil fleshed out how Mukesh was treating the Reliance group like his personal fiefdom and alienating other family members – like himself – from the decision-making process. In addition, investigations pointed out that Mukesh might have changed the group’s ownership pattern in his favour, leaving his y