Anil Ambani

Anil Ambani is the younger son of the founder of Reliance Industries, Dhirubhai Ambani and his wife Kokilaben. Ambani has said that his father would lead the brothers on "incentive-oriented outings" where they would be rewarded a box of mangoes for a 10-km hike, but also punished them for acting out in front of guests. He earned his Bachelor of Science degree from Kishinchand Chellaram College and received a Master in Business Administration at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1983.

Ambani's father Dhirubhai died in 2002 without leaving a clear succession plan. After bickering between Anil and his brother Mukesh, their mother Kokilaben mediated and split the family owned businesses between the two brothers.

In 2005 Ambani made his debut in the entertainment industry with an acquisition of a majority stake in Adlabs Films, a company with interests in film processing, production, exhibition and digital cinema. The company was renamed Reliance MediaWorks in 2009. In 2008 a joint venture worth US$1.2 billion with Steven Spielberg's production company DreamWorks cast Ambani's entertainment business on to a global platform. He has contributed to the production of several Spielberg films, including the Academy Award-winning Lincoln.

Anil Ambani received parts of Reliance Group with interests in telecom, entertainment, financial services, power and infrastructure. Ambani is also credited with India's largest IPO, that of Reliance Power, which in 2008 was subscribed in less than 60 seconds, the fastest in the history of Indian capital markets to date.

In 2018, India's principal opposition party, Indian National Congress, accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of favouring Anil Ambani's defence manufacturing company over HAL, a public sector enterprise, in a fighter aircraft deal worth INR 58,000 crores with French manufacturing firm Dassault. Ambani, several of whose companies are debt-ridden, has denied all charges of benefiting from crony capitalism. In factual terms, Reliance Defence stood to get just over 3 per cent of the Rs 30,000-crore Dassault Aviation offsets contract, contrary to the impression that it was to be the biggest beneficiary of the Rafale fighter jet deal.

In early 2019, a court in Mumbai held Ambani in criminal contempt for non-payment of personally guaranteed debt Reliance Communications owed to Swedish gear maker Ericsson. Instead of jail time, the court gave him a month to come up with the funds. At the end of the month, Ambani was bailed out by his older brother, Mukesh Ambani.

In April 2019, three ADAG Companies reached standstill agreement with Franklin Templeton after secured NCD default. This led to SEBI changing mutual fund regulation of reducing unlisted NCDs exposure to 10% and making standstill agreement void. In aftermath, FT India didn't sell the pledged securities and wound 6 debt funds affecting 3,00,000 investors.

In February 2020, Anil Ambani was locked in a legal battle with 3 Chinese banks. He was asked to set aside $100mn by the court which led him to make the statement that his net worth is currently zero after considering his liabilities. The dispute still rages on with the UK court ordering him to pay the 3 Chinese banks to the tune of $716mn.