The legendary Ambani brothers who have been in the news for totally different reasons undoubtedly have had journeys with a lot of ups and downs. Technically at the moment, Mukesh Ambani who stands tall at the peak, and Anil Ambani is doomed to the pit.
The Ambani brother history –
In 2005, three years after their father’s death, Mukesh Ambani, the older brother was given the responsibility of the oil and petrochemicals sector of the Ambani Empire. However, Anil Ambani, the younger brother took over the telecom, power and infrastructure aspect.
The fall of Anil Ambani
RCom is the telecom sector company of Anil that has seen the most drastic decline in the recent days. The RCom stock plummeted 60 percent in 2018 as Anil Ambani struggled with tons of debt and struggled to sell its spectrum and fibre business to clear the very same losses. Infact, the deal has recently been called off by both the Ambani brothers.
Moreover imagine this, based on current foreign exchange rate, Anil Ambani was valued at $55 billion in 2008 and is now at $300 million. (That was an unimaginable fall!)
On the contrary the older brother, Mukesh Ambani has gone up to be the richest man in India, at a $54.3 billion value. This is the stark contrast that you see in India and its business empire. The sole addition of Reliance Jio by Mukesh Ambani gave RCom stiff competition in already struggling times and increased Mukesh Ambani’s value by $10 billion in 2018-2019 alone.
Another hit to Anil Ambani’s career was when Swedish company Ericsson began demanding its past dues. With no sale deals happening, Anil Ambani was struggling in a huge pool of debt. After a long legal pursuit, it was settled that Anil Ambani has to pay ₹5.5 billion to Ericsson to clear its past dues.
However, even though Anil Ambani gave a personal guarantee to pay that amount, he failed to do so. Finally, the court set a deadline and Ericsson threatened the younger Ambani brother with a jail term if the March 2019 deadline wasn’t met.
What happened in March, 2019?
Finally, what seems to be the end of the feud between the two brothers, Mukesh Ambani stepped up and cleared his brother’s debt towards Ericsson.
“My sincere and heartfelt thanks to my respected elder brother, Mukesh, and Nita, for standing by me during these trying times, and demonstrating the importance of staying true to our strong family values by extending this timely support,” Anil Ambani said in a statement from Reliance Communications. “I and my family are grateful we have moved beyond the past, and are deeply grateful and touched with this gesture”
However, in a country like India, this is a reality check to many top-notch names and their companies who has been funded by enormous loans and haven’t been repaying since quite a long time. Infact, India is a country with a huge bag of bad loan ratio and well, everyone cannot have a Mukesh Ambani swooping in to save the day.
