Anil Ambani net worth is presently zero. This has been admitted by the former billionaire businessman himself.
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In a court proceeding at a UK court in February 2020, claims were made that Anil Ambani net worth is zero. While the courts are investigating the legitimacy of this claim, the business magnate has confirmed that none of his assets can fulfil his debts after liquidation.
Anil Ambani is the younger son of one of India’s most luminary businesspersons, Dhirubhai Ambani. He was once among the richest elite in the world with a net worth that ranked in sixth place worldwide. However, he has faced repeated bad luck in business with so many of his investments tanking into failure. Once given honorable titles like the Businessmen of the Year, Anil Ambani has now claimed bankruptcy in the face of his mounting debts.
The younger Ambani has found himself in a series of controversies ever since his split with his brother, Mukesh Ambani. The two brothers have had polar opposite fates with one climbing higher on the ladder of prosperity and success every day and the other looming in a state of insolvency.
One of the many infamous facts about Anil Ambani is the 90% fall in his Reliance Group’s market capitalization. He has become one of the fastest destroying forces of the wealth held by his shareholders in the last hundred years. Once bailed out by this brother for an amount of $4.5 billion, Anil now finds himself in a precarious situation without any way out.
Key Contributions and Achievements
Born to the Indian business mogul Dhirubhai Ambani, Anil grew up in a luxurious home. He graduated as a Bachelor of Science from a local college. Following the footsteps of his elder brother, Anil went to the Wharton School of Business for an MBA program. He returned to India in 1983 after successfully completing the coursework.
He assisted in the family business until 2002 when senior Ambani passed away. After three years of a consistent rift between the brothers, the Reliance Group was split between the two. While Mukesh Ambani received the petrochemical and oil refinery branch of the business, Anil Ambani acquired more branches. His share included the power generation, telecom, and financial services verticals.
Awards Galore
Until 2006, Anil handled the business empire quite efficiently. He received several accolades for his work while Anil Ambani net worth reached an all-time high of $42 billion. Business India, a leading magazine, conferred the title of Businessman of the Year on junior Ambani in 1998. He also featured among some great names in Asiaweek’s ranking of Leaders of the Millennium in Business and Finance 1999.
In 2001, he became the first-ever alumnae from Wharton to be honored at the Wharton India Economic Forum. This came in recognition of his phenomenal progress as a global business leader. A year later, the Bombay Management Association honored him with the Entrepreneur of the Decade award. The Platts Global Energy group also adjudged him as the CEO of the Year 2004.
The India Today magazine conducted a nationwide poll that assessed Anil Ambani as the Best Role Model in the business domain. The same year, he was chosen as the Businessman of the Year under a poll by the Times of India group.
After the Split
Anil Ambani’s Reliance Group took over the Reliance Power, Reliance Infrastructure, and Reliance Home Finance businesses in 2005. The Reliance Naval and Reliance Capital companies also fell under his supervision. Besides, he was keen on taking over Reliance Communications to leverage the bustling potential of the telecom sector back then.
Anil devoted himself to the growth of RCom, as it was known. RCom worked on the CDMA platform against the GSM model used by its key competitors, Vodafone and Airtel. With the continuous growth of the telecom domain, RCom soon fell behind the aggressive competition due to its CDMA model. The advent of 4G completely wiped of RCom from the market.
The failure of Reliance’s telecom branch was the first big hit to Anil Ambani net worth. The business magnate took several loans to build Reliance’s presence in the vertical. The downfall of RCom meant serious repercussions for junior Ambani. He continued to make more borrowings in the hope of reviving the business with network expansion. This simply added more to his woes.
When the two brothers’ non-compete deal ended in 2010, Mukesh Ambani made an entry into the telecom sector with Reliance Jio. This was the final defeat that drowned Anil’s RCom once and for all.
Ridden in Insolvency Procedures
In the face of mounting debt from RCom, Anil’s other business endeavors also followed suit. His multiple investments ended in failure, hitting his net worth adversely. In 2018, Ericsson India filed a lawsuit against RCom for a whopping 1100 crore INR. The proceedings went from the National Company’s Law Tribunal to the Supreme Court. After elaborate hearings, the court ordered Ambani to pay up $5.5 billion unserviced debts to Ericsson or face jail time. Mukesh Ambani came to his younger brother’s rescue and bailed him out.
On the other hand, all of Anil’s other ventures failed miserably. 2019 witnessed the end of Reliance Capital when the company sold off its complete stake ownership in Reliance Nippon Life Asset Management. This was done to direct all the funds worth $860 million to service 33% of the company’s outstanding debts.
Anil Ambani net worth was already on its worst downward spiral when he announced that he will sell off many other ventures. While RCom suffered greatly due to the aggressive competition in the telecom sector, Reliance Capital faced the brunt of the domestic and global economic slowdown. At the same time, Reliance Home Finance was caught in the midst of several bond repayments.
Key Moments in Life
For one of the richest men on the planet at one time, tables turned drastically to bring Anil Ambani to poverty. After finishing his Master’s in Business Administration from the prestigious Wharton School, he came back to India to work on his family business. Splitting up with his elder brother did not bring him much luck after some initial success.
Anil featured in the Forbes list of the world’s richest people in 2008 in the sixth position. He enjoyed an enviable net worth of $42 billion at the time. In a span of twelve years, the business magnate lost every inch of his mammoth empire, claiming to have zero worth. His high hopes of taking Reliance Group forward in multiple verticals failed year after the year, bringing Anil Ambani net worth to an all-time low.
The year 2018 came as a major blow for the former billionaire. He faced imprisonment in a lawsuit filed by Ericsson India. Thanks to his elder brother, he was bailed out in time. However, his fortunes have steadily dimmed since then. Within a year, all of the six business undertakings in Anil’s hands collapsed. Their market cap kept falling as the unpaid debts kept surging consistently.
At present, he is facing lawsuits by three Chinese banks for the mammoth debts that he took against his personal guarantee. His downfall from a glorious business tycoon to a miserable failure came at the humiliating admission of his net worth is zero.
Anil Ambani Net Worth: All You Need to Know
As already stated, the former billionaire businessman has admitted that Anil Ambani net worth is presently zero. However, the court is probing the accuracy of this claim. This is so because the businessman continues to live a rather luxurious life with his family. In his present lawsuit by three Chinese banks, he owes a total debt of $700 million.
Here is a detailed look at Anil Ambani’s fall from the ladder of success and his current assets.
Timeline of Anil Ambani’s Falling Net Worth
Ambani amassed $42 billion in his net worth by the year 2008. Three years later, his worth underwent a four times fall to a meager $8.8 billion value. This was primarily because of the CBI’s investigation into the 2G scam and the involvement of Swan Telecom. A year later, Anil Ambani net worth recorded another fall of three billion dollars and came down to $3.3 billion. This was primarily a consequence of the fall in Reliance Power’s business.
The year 2016 brought his worth to $2.5 billion. Things looked difficult for the once sixth richest man in the world. While junior Ambani kept running into unserviceable debts, senior Ambani made a grand entry into the Telecom sector with Reliance Jio. Jio’s revolutionary success further augmented RCom’s failure and forced them to shut shop. At the same time, Reliance Power also sold its entire stock balance, unable to perform in the competitive market.
While 2018 witnessed a slight glimmer of hope, 2019 sealed the deal for the former business mogul. Reliance Communications filed for bankruptcy. With that came Supreme Court’s dire warning for Ambani to pay up the debts worth $5.5 billion or go to jail. Mukesh Ambani paid a sum of $4.5 billion to save face for his family name. It was also noted that Anil fell out of the billionaires’ club with his net worth amounting only $500 million.
Personal Assets
His luxurious fleet of expensive cars forms a big chunk of Anil Ambani net worth. His car collection is worth at least $3 million. He also owns a lavish private yacht named Tian. This extravagant asset is also worth a whopping $56 million. The counsel representing the three Chinese banks in their lawsuit against Anil Ambani made these statements about his personal wealth. This was to counter the businessman’s claims about his zero net worth.
Latest News Updates (Collated from various sources)
Three state-controlled Chinese banks have pursued Ambani for more than $700 million in a London court, arguing that they provided funding to his Reliance Communications Ltd. in 2012 with the condition that he personally guarantee the debt. After winning a ruling requiring Ambani to make the payments, the banks have yet to receive any funds. – Source: NDTV
Anil Ambani Tells UK Court he ‘sold Jewellery For Legal Fees’; Took Loans From Mother, Son – Source: RepublicWorld
Anil Ambani, who is facing a lawsuit by three Chinese banks in a UK court, during a hearing on Friday, said he paid legal fees for the case by selling off jewellery. ‘I’m a simple man of simple tastes,’ he said. Source – TimesNow
A statement issued after the hearing indicated that the banks will use all the information from the cross-examination to pursue available legal options to protect their rights and recover all the outstanding loans Ambani owes to them. Source – IndiaToday
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