“Polyester Prince” Dhirubhai Ambani built the multibillion dollar Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries from scratch. After a heart attack, Ambani passed on the empire, which had interests in polyester, petrochemicals, energy, oil and other businesses, to his sons Anil and Mukesh.
A squabble between the brothers resulted in the empire being split into two—by their mother, of course. Mukesh kept Reliance Industries, India’s biggest private company, with its vast textile, oil and petrochemicals interests. His brother Anil named his portion, which includes holdings in telecom, infrastructure, entertainment, financial services, and power, the Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group. Together, the brothers hold the purse strings to an awful lot of India, as well as several other parts of the world.