Politics: Special Series; Anil, 40 & Mukesh Ambani, 44

Nov 8, 1999

SPECIAL SERIES

Anil, 40 & Mukesh Ambani, 44
Managing Director & Vice-Chairman, Reliance Group

The Big Dreamers
When a businessman says "we've stopped chasing numbers" it's time to take a hard look at him and recommend a psychiatrist. But when Anil Ambani makes that statement, it means Reliance has within its reach the only number it has ever wanted: No. 1. In the past five years, Anil and brother Mukesh have overseen the transformation of Reliance into India's largest private company and could, by the year 2000, emerge as the country's largest business group with a turnover of Rs 50,000 crore.

The workaholic, obsessively driven brothers are riding on the success of the group's newest mega-venture, a sprawling Rs 24,000 crore refinery and petrochemicals complex in Jamnagar. They don't have their father Dhirubhai's reputation for corporate and policy buccaneering or being a stockholder's dream, but the brothers will maintain their hold on the market with the massive scale of their operations. There's no sign of stopping. "Growth is life," Anil echoes the company slogan. For the Ambanis, they should add another line: life is growth.

-V. Shankar Aiyar

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