Mukesh Ambani: Is there a single family office?

Where does the fortune of Mukesh Ambani come from?

Mukesh Ambani is an Indian billionaire businessman currently based in Mumbai. He is the Chairman, Managing Director and largest shareholder of Reliance Industries Ltd, a Fortune Global 500 company and India’s most valuable company by market value. The company was founded by his father, Dhirubhai Ambani, in the 1960s. Mukesh joined his father’s business in 1981 and took over in 2002 after his father’s death. Reliance Industries Limited owns businesses across India in energy, petrochemicals, textiles, natural resources, retail and telecommunications, making Mukesh Ambani Asia’s richest person.

Update 2024: Ambani is still one of the world’s most successful businessmen. In 2024, his fortune was estimated at €116 billion, making him the richest person on the Asian continent.

Featured: Our unique Asian Single Family Office Database

How did Ambani’s company Reliance Industries develop?

In 1958, Dhirubhai Ambani, Mukesh’s father, returned to India after a brief stint in Yemen to set up a trading company focused on spices and textiles. It was originally called Vimal, but later changed to Just Vimal. In 1966, Reliance Textiles Engineers Pvt. Ltd. was incorporated, which became Reliance Industries Limited. In 1975, the company expanded into textiles, with “Vimal” becoming its main brand in later years. Just two years later, the company went public. In the years that followed, the company became a conglomerate, expanding into oil and gas with Reliance Petroleum in 1993 and into telecommunications with Reliance Telecom Private Limited in 1996. This was followed by expansion into the retail market in 2006 with ‘Reliance Fresh’. Today, the conglomerate has a turnover of $92 billion and continues to be India’s largest exporter, accounting for 8% of India’s total merchandise exports and nearly 5% of the Indian government’s total customs and excise revenue.

Is there a Mukesh Ambani family office?

According to our research team, Ambani holds almost all his assets within the Reliance organisation and also organises his investments within the conglomerate. Still in 2022, Ambani appeared to open his first own single family office in Singapore. The family office was set up by the billionaire’s company, Reliance Industries. So Reliance Industries still functions as an investment vehicle for Ambani, with the Singapore family office helping him to invest in assets abroad.

How does the Mukesh Ambani family office invest?

Within Reliance Industries, Mukesh Ambani invests in several types of asset classes. The most dominant are investments in energy (mainly oil and gas), real estate (he privately owns a portfolio worth more than USD 400 million) and venture capital. In venture capital, he focuses on energy, petrochemicals, textiles, natural resources, retail and telecommunications. Sample investments include the Reliance Corporate Park in Mumbai and several start-ups (Grab, C-Square and Fynd).

This article is part of our detailed report “The Single Family Offices of Asian Billionaires and HNWIs“.

Picture source: Irving Martinez