Brotherhood

India’s billionaire Ambani brothers are as much in the news as the Hong Kong Kwok brothers. A rags to riches story that happened in 1973 with the founding of Reliance by Dhirubhai Ambani, a textile trader in Mumbai, who eventually built India’s largest private sector company, consisting of clothing manufacturing, petrochemicals, oil refining & gas exploration.

When the brothers split up their father’s conglomerate, they entered into a non-compete agreement that prevented them to enter into the same business sector. Rumours say that this is the will of the mother. Nevertheless, after battling 5 years in court, the brothers are now ready to move their rivalry into the market place and compete head on in business.

Reliance Industries (elder brother, Mukesh Ambani, currently Asia’s richest man) – USD44.6Bn annual revenue, engages in natural gas, oil refinery, retail & petrochemicals.

Reliance ADA Group (younger brother, Anil Ambani) – a financial services giant, operating India’s largest mutual fund with USD24Bn under management; also invests in power plants & movie distribution (owning Steven Spielberg’s DreamWorks), and controls India’s no.2 cell phone carrier.

We are also seeing the same juicy news in Hong Kong on the Sun Hung Kai brothers. Perhaps wealth kills brotherhood.