MUMBAI: India`s billionaire Ambani brothers are signing deals and drawing up expansion plans after calling a halt to their very public five-year battle over the spoils of their father`s vast business empire.
The warring siblings, Mukesh, 53, and Anil, 51, buried the hatchet in May on a venomous feud arising from the division of the huge conglomerate left by their rags-to-riches father Dhirubhai, who died in 2002 without a will.
The brothers have promised a new "environment of harmony, cooperation and collaboration", and analysts say the rapprochement could strengthen their positions at the top of India`s corporate pile.
"They clearly want to move on," said Deepak Pareek, an oil analyst with Mumbai`s Angel Broking.
Any lingering personal animosity is being shoved into the background, as the brothers push an image of fraternal solidarity that saw them holiday together in June with their families in a South African game reserve.
It was the first joint vacation for a decade for the Ambanis, who spent their early years in a two-bedroom tenement while their father built Reliance into a corporate colossus.
The original division of spoils between the two brothers had seen Mukesh keep the oil, gas and petrochemicals businesses of the group`s flagship Reliance Industries, India`s biggest private company.
Anil got Reliance Energy, one of India`s biggest power utility firms, the phone company Reliance Communications and the financial services arm, Reliance Capital.
The May truce saw them tear up a non-competition pact that had prevented them entering the same sectors -- a move that the brothers said would provide greater "operational and financial" flexibility to their respective groups.
Mukesh, who is in a vastly stronger financial position with a personal fortune estimated by Forbes magazine at 29 billion dollars, has announced what he calls "mega-expansion" plans into telecom and banking -- high-growth areas in India that had hitherto been Anil`s turf.
He has already moved into mobile broadband with Infotel Broadband, the only company to win a nationwide licence in a recent auction of broadband wireless spectrum.
Mukesh`s Reliance Industries has also tied up with global financial services giant DE Shaw, at a time when the central bank is mulling issuing fresh banking licences.
"The biggest game-changer is that the brothers will complement each other," said Gaurang Shah of Geojit BNP Paribas Financial Services.
As well as allowing them to explore the potential for working in concert, the truce has also allowed the brothers to focus on their own businesses rather than expending time and effort on mutual recriminations.
Anil has begun seeking suitors for the sale of a stake in Reliance Communications as he seeks to raise badly needed capital.
Two years ago, he had lined up MTN of South Africa as a prospective buyer, but Mukesh scotched the deal by invoking a right of first refusal enshrined in the terms under which the brothers divided their father`s business.
Nicknamed "Marathon Man" because of his daily jogs and regarded as the more outgoing of the two, Anil has a fortune calculated by Forbes at 13.7 billion dollars -- less than half that of his older brother.
Throughout their battles, the Ambanis continued to live under the same roof -- albeit on different floors -- in a towering Mumbai mansion with their mother, whom they both revere.
The decision to bring down the curtain on their feud came weeks after the Indian Supreme Court ruled in favour of Mukesh in a pricing battle with Anil over supplies from the nation`s largest gas find.
BDST: 0901 HRS, July 7, 2010
