Anil Ambani

Anil Ambani (born June 4, 1959) is an Indian billionaire and a major shareholder in Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group. Anil's elder brother, Mukesh Ambani, is also a billionaire, and owns another company called Reliance Industries. With an estimated personal wealth of $ 17 Billion, he is the third richest Indian in the world, behind Mukesh Ambani and Lakshmi Mittal ^[2]

He is a member of the Board of Overseers at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He is also the a member of the Board of Governors of the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur; Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. He is a member of the Central Advisory Committee, Central Electricity Regulatory Commission. In March 2006, he resigned. He is also the Chairman of Board of Governors of DA-IICT, Gandhinagar.

Career

Ambani joined Reliance, the company founded by his late father Dhirubhai Ambani, in 1983 as Co-Chief Executive Officer and is credited with having pioneered many financial innovations in the Indian capital markets. For example, he led India's first forays into overseas capital markets with international public offerings of global depositary receipts, convertibles and bonds. He directed Reliance in its efforts to raise, since 1991, around US$2 billion from overseas financial markets; with a 100-year Yankee bond issue in January 1997 being the high point, after which people regarded him as a financial wizard^{[citation needed]}. He along with his brother, Mukesh Ambani, has steered the Reliance Group to its current status as India's leading textiles, petroleum, petrochemicals, power, and telecom company.

He has been linked with several starlets in his long career including his current wife of more than 15 years. He is a close friend of movie star Amitabh Bachchan and Subrata Roy.One of his major achievements in the entertainment industry is the takeover of Adlabs, the movie production to distribution to multiplex company that owns India's only dome theatre and the recently announced joint venture worth US$ 825 million with Steven Spielberg

He has been embroiled in a dispute with his brother, Mukesh Ambani, over the supply of gas from the latter's KG basin..

Awards and Recognition

• Voted the 3rd most powerful person in India in the 2009 India Today Power List, in March.^[3]
• Voted Businessman of the Year 2006 by Times of India-TNS poll^[4]
• Adjudged as the CEO of the Year at the prestigious Platts Global Energy Awards for 2004.
• Voted as 'MTV Youth Icon of the Year for 2003' in September 2003.
• Conferred 'The Entrepreneur of the Decade Award' by the Bombay Management Association, October 2002.
• Awarded the First Wharton Indian Alumni Award by the Wharton India Economic Forum (WIEF) in recognition of his contribution to the establishment of Reliance as a global leader in many of its business areas, December 2001.
• Conferred the ' Businessman of the Year 1997' award by India's leading business magazine Business India, December 1997.

Personal life

He is married to Indian Bollywood Actress Tina Munim and has two sons Anmol and Anshul. He has taken part in the Mumbai Marathon race. Ambani is also a fan of Coca-Cola Championship club, Newcastle United and was extremely close to buying the club in September 2008. In June 2004, Anil was elected as an Independent Member of the Rajya Sabha - Upper House, Parliament of India with the support of the Samajwadi Party.

Travel

He has a Bell 412 13-seat helicopter, which he purchased in 2001.^[5]

Assassination attempt

On the evening of 23 April 2009, mud, gravel and pebbles were found in his 13-seat helicopter VT-RCL's (a Bell 412) gearbox.^[6] Despite the gear box being located at a height of 10 feet from the ground, the gravel and pebbles were put in the filler cap in the gear box. A senior pilot of Reliance Transport and Travels Pvt. Ltd., Captain RN Joshi filed a complaint with the Mumbai Police Commissioner's office, Maharashtra Chief Minister's office, Maharasthra Home Minister's office, Chief Secretary's office, Joint Commissioner of Police's office and also at the Santa Cruz Police Station.

The helicopter was standing outside a hangar at the Mumbai Airport when the sabotage was found by Bharat Borge, a technician for Air Works. Borge was found dead on April 28, 2009 on Mumbai's suburban railway tracks between Vile Parle and Andheri. A letter was also found with him. Railway Police believes that he might have been run over by the Churchgate-bound fast-local. "Borge's mysterious death created a flutter, lending credence to Anil Ambani's charge that certain 'rival business groups were trying to eliminate him'. "^[7][8]

The post-mortem conducted on Bharat Borge revelated that he died of shock due to multiple fractures, resulting in brain haemorrhage.^[9] There was also a letter found in his pocket written in marathi saying "I haven't done anything wrong. That day, some Reliance people came and spoke to me. I didn't tell them anything. One of them took my number and said that he'll talk to me later. I felt they were using me. I am writing this letter after thinking all night. It looks like the blame will be on me. I think the investigation is on the right track and truth will emerge soon."^[9]

Investigators later said that Borge's death was an accident and not suicide.^[10]

Airworks India Engineering Pvt. Ltd., the company that maintains the helicopter, was questioning its employees in the case.^[11]

English Premier League

Ambani was in talks Everton officials over a deal to takeover the club. Before this he was also on the brink of buying Newcastle United.^[12][13] He is now believed to be keen to re-kindle his interest in Everton as Chairman Bill Kenwright has admitted he will now actively seek to sell his shares due to the collapse of the clubs collapsed Destination Kirkby stadium project.

Bibliography

• Yogesh Chabria, Happionaire's Cash The Crash. CNBC - Network18. ISBN 9788190647953 - 2009

References

External links

• Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology
• Forbes.com: Forbes World's Richest People
• Reliance ADAG
• Reliance India Call
• Reliance Communications
• Reliance Energy
• Reliance Capital
• Reliance World
• Reliance Life Insurance
• Reliance General Insurance
• Reliance Mutual Fund
• Reliance Portfolio Management
• Reliance Natural Resources
• Reliance Technology Ventures Ltd
• Reliance Money
• Reliance Health
• Adlabs Films
• Adlabs Cinemas