Anil Ambani joins top billionaires club
Tuesday, March 07,2006
MUMBAI: At 9.55am on Monday, Anil Ambani formally announced his entry into the club of India’s top billionaires, signing in at No 4.
As he struck the gong from the podium of the Rotunda hall of the Bombay Stock
Exchange, the newly listed share of Reliance Communications Ventures Ltd
(RCoVL) — holding company of Reliance Infocomm — took off.
Starting at Rs299, it rose to Rs309 before settling at Rs290.85. At that price,
the company is valued at over Rs35,000 crore, making Anil India’s fourth
richest billionaire after steel baron Lakshmi Mittal (estimated wealth:
Rs90,000 crore), Wipro chief Azim Premji (Rs61,290 crore), and elder brother
Mukesh Ambani (Rs43,600 crore).
Anil is now worth Rs32,525 crore, this being the value of his personal holdings.
Even as the listing created instant wealth for shareholders, missing at the
celebrations was Mukesh, the man widely credited with the creation of Reliance
Infocomm.
It was a power show all the same. While the home front was represented by
Anil’s mother Kokilaben and wife Tina, the global face of the occasion was
Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft Corp.
Ballmer — a classmate of Mukesh at Stanford University — spoke from Seattle,
his image being streamed on to a giant BSE screen through the Reliance Infocomm
network.
Anil’s instant success contrasted sharply with the challenges faced by his
father, Dhirubhai. In the nine months since the Ambani empire was divided, two
million Reliance shareholders have seen their paper wealth soar by more than
Rs70,000 crore. That’s as much as the wealth Reliance Industries created over
28 years.
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Anthony P. D'Costa, Professor
Comparative International Development
Abe Fellow (2005-06)
University of Washington
1900 Commerce Street
Tacoma, WA 98402, USA
Phone: (253) 692-4462
Fax : (253) 692-5718
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