Billionaire Mukesh Ambani : Biography, Career, Net Worth

Mukesh Ambani is an Indian businessman listed as the richest man in Asia and ranks No.16 on the Forbes 2020 World's Billionaires list. He is also the managing director, chairman, and largest shareholder of the $88 billion revenue company, Reliance Industries Limited. Its market value makes it India’s most valuable company.

Net worth

$53.2B as of May 27, 2020.

Source of Wealth

Petrochemicals, oil & gas

Early life & education

Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambani was born on the 19^th of April 2019 in Aden, Yemen. Though Ambani’s nationality is Indian, his family had lived in Yemen for a while before moving back to India in 1958. His father, Dhirubhai Ambani needed to start a new business of selling spices and textiles in India.

Ambani had his high school education at the Hill Grange High School. On graduation from high school, he enrolled at the Institute of Chemical Technology (UDCT), Matunga, where he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering. By 1980, he enrolled at Stanford University to get a Master’s degree, but had to withdraw to join his father’s business; Reliance, a small spice and textile enterprise at that time. Ambani was put in charge of the yarn manufacturing department.

Business Career

The Indian government, in 1980, granted access to the private sector for the manufacturing of polyester filament yarn (PFY). It was then that Ambani’s father, Dhirubhai took advantage of the opportunity to expand his business. The process and competition for securing the yarn manufacturing license was quite tedious and competitive, however, Dhirubhai emerged successfully. Building a yarn plant wasn’t a job for one person, it was then he decided to ask Ambani to return home to help him build the yarn plant. On his return, Ambani was put in charge of the yarn department/plant.

Ambani properly joined the family business, Reliance Industries Ltd in 1981. The enterprise had gradually expanded from a small enterprise into a proper company. Its operations and productions also included petroleum refining and petrochemicals, retail services, and telecommunication services. Its retail and telecommunication services were later made subsidiaries of Reliance Industries Ltd.—Reliance Retail Ltd. & Reliance Jio, respectively. The company launched its telecommunication service, Reliance Jio on the 5^th of September 2016, and it has since then ranked among the top-five telecommunications service providers in India.

In 1986, Dhirubhai suffered a stroke which made him incapable of running the business. All responsibilities were placed on the shoulders of Mukesh who was 24 at the time. He was placed in charge of the construction of the Patalanga petrochemical plant. The company had only begun to explore the possibilities of oil refinery and petrochemicals by making heavy investments. Ambani then established the telecom wing by setting up the Reliance Infocomm Limited which was later renamed Reliance Communications Limited which dealt with information and communication technology operations.

By 2002, Dhirubahi suffered another stroke which led to his untimely death later in the year. The company was then split into two by Ambani and his younger brother, Anil Ambani. Reliance Industries Limited and Indian Petrochemicals Corporation Limited were taken by Mukesh Ambani, and the other subsidiaries were left to his brother, Anil.

In 2005, Ambani’s inheritance of the conglomerate was approved by the Bombay High Court. He then continued on the path of oil exploration. In 2010, he pioneered the creation of a refinery at Jamnagar which became the world’s largest grassroot petroleum refinery at the time. The refinery had a capacity of producing 660,000 barrels per day which equaled 33 million tonnes per year. Ambani later incorporated the manufacturing of petrochemicals and power generation, alongside port and related infrastructure.

To further pursue the company’s telecommunications interest, Ambani began making investments into that sector. At the 40^th AGM of Reliance Industries Limited in 2014, he announced his intention to make a short-term investment of Rs. 1.8 trillion across businesses, and also launch the 4G broadband services by 2015. He had also shown interest in collaborating with Bharti Airtel in setting up the 4G network in India. However, in 2016, the Reliance Jio launched its 4G-supported smartphone brand. Jio was launched into the Indian hyper-competitive telecomm market with a strategy. Offering relatively affordable mobile services which included cheap data services, free domestic voice calls, and cheap smartphones.

In 2019, Ambani struck a deal worth $15 billion with Saudi Aramco which is likely to increase his worth making him one of the top-five richest persons in the world by 2023. Concerning the deal and Ambani’s next wealth phase, Rupert Hoogewerf (founder and chairman of Hurun Report) had this to say, “The next millions for Ambani would come in from telecomm and retail and all the things he is building around it. So, it would come from broadband, the internet, and the entire ecosystem, and his plans to integrate Kirina stores with the telecomm infrastructure among others.” In August 2019, the business magnate finally announced his intentions of making Reliance Industries Limited, completely debt free by 2020, and eventually make his retail and telecommunications businesses into separate companies to place more value on them.

Positions (held & current)

●     Chairman, MD, chairman of Finance committee, and member- Employees Stock Compensation Committee, Reliance Industries Limited

●     Chairman of the board- Reliance petroleum

●     Chairman and chairman of audit committee- Reliance Limited

●     Chairman- Reliance Exploration and Production DMCC

●     President- Pandit Deendayal Petroleum University, Gandhinagar, Gujarat

●     Former vice-chairman – Reliance Petroleum

●     Former chairman- Indian Petrochemicals Corporation Limited

●     Former Director, member of credit committee and member of compensation & benefits committee- Bank of America Corporation

●     Member-  Board of Governors Chemical Technology, Mumbai