Few men in history have made as dramatic a contribution to their country’s economic fortunes as did the founder of Reliance, Sh. Dhirubhai H Ambani. Fewer still have left behind a legacy that is more enduring and timeless. Dhirubhai is widely regarded as the father of India’s capital markets. Reliance touches the life of Indians every single day such as Little Krishna on Nick, Reliance Mobile, Reliance Fresh, Big TV, Mumbai Indians etc . This section is about the Reliance and ADAG Companies , DhiruBhai Ambani, Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani  based on information about them from interviews, blogs etc.

Reliance Industries

Reliance Industries, is an Indian conglomerate of companies started by DhiruBhai Ambani  in 1966. In just 4 decades, Reliance has grown from a small startup to one of the largest, most admired companies in the world. Dhirubhai Ambani founded Reliance as a textile company and led its evolution as a global leader in various sectors like petrochemicals, textiles and is involved in the production of crude oil and gas, to polyester and polymer products. The companies refinery at Jamnagar accounts for over 25% of India’s total refining capacity and their plant at Hazira is the biggest chemical complex in India. The company further diversified into Telecom, Insurance and Internet Businesses, the Power Sector etc. Dhirubhai Ambani took Reliance public in 1977, and by 2007 the combined fortune of the family (sons Mukesh and Anil) was 60 billion dollars.

Some facts about Reliance which were mentioned by Mukesh Ambani in Jul 2017, at  at the 40th annual general meeting of Reliance Industries.

•  Reliance saw 4,700 times increase in turnover in the last 40 years.
• Its net profit rose from Rs 3 crore to Rs 30,000 crore during the same period. A 10,000 times increase in net profit
•  RIL’s assets which stood at Rs 32 cr in 1977, is at a staggering Rs 7,00,000 crore today, a multiple of 20,000 times
• The company’s market capitalistion multiplied from Rs 10 crore in 1977 to Rs 5 lakh crore, multiplying a whopping 50,000 times.
• Rs 1,000 invested in the company’s stock is today worth Rs 16.5 lakh, which means that the investors’ money doubled every 2.5 years.
• From 3,500 employees in 1977, all of RIL’s businesses put together today employ 2,50,000 people worldwide.

The growth of Reliance Stock is shown in the image below.

Growth of Reliance in charts

After severe differences between two sons, Mukesh Ambani and Anil Ambani, the group was divided between them in 2006. The Reliance empire was split with Mukesh Ambani getting RIL and IPCL & his younger sibling Anil Ambani heading Reliance Capital, Reliance Energy and Reliance Infocomm. The entity headed by Mukesh Ambani is referred to as the Reliance Industries Limited whereas Anil’s Group has been renamed Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG).  Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, range from, communications (Reliance Communications) and financial services (Reliance Capital Ltd), to generation, transmission and distribution of power (Reliance Energy), infrastructure and entertainment (BigFM, Big TV, Zapak).

 Dhiru Bhai Ambani

Think big, Think fast,Think ahead, ideas are no ones monopoly

Dhirajlal Hirachand Ambani (28 December 1932, – 6 July 2002), better known as Dhirubhai Ambani was the most enterprising Indian entrepreneur. His life journey is reminiscent of the rags to riches story. He is remembered as the one who rewrote Indian corporate history and built a truly global corporate group. Assisted by his two sons, Mukesh and Anil, Dhiru Bhai Ambani built India’s largest private sector company, Reliance India Limited, from a scratch. He was married to Kokilaben and had two sons Mukesh and Anil and two daughters Dipti and Nina. Some of his photographs are given below :

Dhirajlal Hirachand Ambani was born on 28 December 1932, in Chowad(Gujarat), in family of very moderate means. He was the second son of a school teacher. When he was 16 years old, Dhirubhai started off as a small time worker with Arab merchants in Aden. In 1958 he moved to Mumbai start his own business in spices. After making modest profits, he moved into textiles and opened his mill near Ahmedabad. Dhirubhai started the brand Vimal (named after his elder brother Ramaniklal Ambani’s son, Vimal Ambani).After that it was a saga of expansions and successes.

Dhirubhai Ambani is credited with starting the equity cult in India. More than 58,000 investors from various parts of India subscribed to Reliance’s IPO in 1977. Reliance Industries was the first private sector company whose Annual General Meetings were held in stadiums. In 1986, The Annual General Meeting of Reliance Industries was held in Cross Maidan, Mumbai and was attended by more than 35,000 shareholders and the Reliance family. His funeral procession in July 2002, was not only attended by business people, politicians and celebrities but also by thousands of ordinary people. From Outlook India Kingmaker’s Sceptre

Reliance AGM in Wankhede Stadium in 1994

Hindi film,Guru, directed by film maker Mani Ratnam,is said to be loosely inspired by the life of Dhirubhais Ambani was released on 12 January 2007. It stars Abhishek Bachchan, Mithun Chakraborty, Aishwarya Rai, R. Madhavan and Vidya Balan. An unauthorized biography of Dhirubhai Ambani,The Polyester Prince by Hamish McDonald , was published in 1998 outlining his political and business conquests. HarperCollins didn’t sell the book in India, because the Ambani threatened legal action.Interested readers can read Polyster Prince on Scribd having uploaded  In 2010, updated version Ambani and Sons  by Hamish McDonald went on sale in India, Now there are many books on Dhirubhai ,Dhirubhai Ambani: Against All Odds: A Story of Courage, Perseverance and Hope by A G Krishnamurthy (27 June 2008), Corporate Guru Dhirubhai Ambani by Prateeksha M Tiwari (1 June 2010), More on CNN Travel Ambani & Sons: The story of India’s richest family   image given below

Books and film on Dhirubhai Ambani

To know more about Dhirubhai ambani checkout following links: Dhirubhai (on BeMoneyAware.com) , Dhirubhai.net , icmrindia: Case Study and Rediff

KokilaBen DhiruBhai Ambani

Kokilaben Dhiru Bhai Ambani is the wife of Dhirubhai Ambani. The name Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani conjures up images of a strong-willed, determined woman who steadfastly stood behind her husband in all his endeavours and is believed to have played a major role in his success. She came into limelight in 2005 when she settled the dispute between her sons on Reliance ownership issue. As , Nina Kothari (Daughter of Dhiru Bhai) emphasised, “People keep saying it is my brothers Mukesh and Anil, who are directly connected to Dhirubhai, because they have his genes and will carry the family name forward, but I’d like to say it is equally our mother’s genes that have shaped all of us….and we are extremely proud of her today.” Media follows the activities of Kokilaben, her birthday celebration, Photogalleryon times of india, She comes across as head of the Reliance family, keeping them together, justifying  Mere paas Maa Hai. Anil Ambani named the hospital he started in Mumbai,managed by his wife Tina Munim Ambani as Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital.

Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani

Kokila ,Born in a middle-class family,daughter of Ratilal Jasharaj Patel and Rukshmaniben,she spent her childhood in Jamnagar with her two sisters and two brothers.She did her matriculation in the Shri Sajuba Girls High School in Jamnagar. She was fond of reading and loved singing too(Kokila generally means Cuckoo or Nightingale). She would do all the household chores that girls of those days were expected to do. She got married to Dhirubhai Ambani in 1955. She joined Dhirubhai in Aden. Mukesh was born on April 19, 1957 in Aden. Towards the end of 1958 Dhirubhai came back to Bombay.  About Dhirubhai she says In his private life Dhirubhai fulfiled every role and responsibility with aplomb. He was a caring husband a loving father an indulgent grandfather and a loyal friend. He devoted a great deal of time and energy to his children ‘s learning and to the development of their personalities. From Kokilaben’s interview in MidDay A life, a wife and some strife How Dhirubhai helped her to expand her horizons.

He would always keep me apprised and updated on his new projects and I would attend the inauguration of every plant.

He would insist on me accompanying him to every party and function. He would often say meeting others would add to our general knowledge.

Even when some dignitaries dropped by at our house, he would insist on me joining him.

I had started learning English immediately after coming to Mumbai. This was also thanks to Dhirubhai’s foresight.

He would take me to five-star hotels so that I could cultivate a taste for Chinese, Mexican, Italian and Japanese cuisine. Even when we went abroad, he would fill me in with information about the places we visited and even asked me to read about them. In short, he moulded me so well, that I would not feel out of place anywhere. I constantly adapted to change.

Kokilaben wrote memoirs on  the life of Dhirubhai Ambani ,his rise in business as well as personal life, titled ,”Dhirubhai Ambani: The Man I Knew“, the Gujarati edition is named “DHIRUBHAI AMBANI :MAARA JEEVAN SATHI“.  She was assisted in the book by daughter Dipti (Ambani) Salgaocar, who worked with her mother in conceptualizing and putting the 300-page tome together. It comprises rare pictures of places and people associated with Dhirubhai as well as intimate personal anecdotes of his life and work.  On reasons behind her decision to write on Dhirubhai, Kokilaben said in a media release: “I felt all these facts from his life should be recorded for posterity. The world has seen him as a successful industrialist; but I have seen him in the role of an excellent man. I wanted to draw his personality as a humane individual, and that’s how I was inspired to write this book.” . Ref:Book release on reliance ADAG. Mani Ratnam cast Aishwarya Rai to essay the role inspired by Kokilaben D. Ambani in Guru, which was loosely based on the life of her late husband.

Website www.relianceinsider.com as the name suggests gives insider information on reliance (sadly not updated after 2012)

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Do you think taking about rich people is bad? What do you think of Dhirubhai’s achievement? What do you think of Kokilaben Ambani? Do you think Dhirubhai needs to be celebrated as hero? Would you like to know more about other rich people, if yes whom?