ABOUT 2 KNOWPEDIA

DHIRUBHAI AMBHANI (b. Dec. 28, 1932, Chorwad, Gujarat; d. July 6, 2002, Mumbai, Maharashtra), in full Dhirajlal Hirachand Ambani , a legendary entrepreneur. He was the founder chairman of India's biggest private sector conglomerate, the Reliance Group. Dhirubhai, as he was popularly known, was born into a family of modest means. Dropping out of school, he earned his first income by selling hot snacks to pilgrims outside a temple in his village in Saurashtra. At 17, he went to Aden (now in Yemen) and worked for Burmah Shell Oil Co., a distributor of Shell products, as a gas-station attendant. He soon became a manager.

 Upon returning to India in 1958, Ambani set up Reliance Commercial Corporation, a commodity trading and export house, in Bombay. Established with an investment capital of Rs 15,000, the company specialized in exporting spices and used replenishment licenses to import rayon. He was then a man of humble means, with rented desk space for an office and a one-room flat for home in a crowded chawl in Bombay. However, through a series of strategic moves, by the mid-1960s, Ambani emerged as the largest polyester trader in the country. This earned him the sobriquet "The Prince of Polyester". In 1966, Ambani opened a spinning mill with four warp-knitting machines and 70 employees in Naroda, Ahmedabad.

Reliance Industries went public in 1977, mobilizing the capital of thousands of small investors. Gradually Reliance emerged as an industry giant with revenues over Rs 600 billion and investor strength of about 4 million. Reliance's integrated Jamnagar Petroleum Refinery complex in Gujarat is said to house the world's largest greenfield project; the plant at Hazira, in Gujarat, is the biggest single multi-feed ethylene cracker.

Following a paralytic stoke in 1986, Ambani handed the responsibility for day-today functioning of the company to his sons, Mukesh and Anil. In 2002, Reliance Industries Ltd and Reliance Petroleum Ltd merged to create the biggest private sector company in India. It is India's first private sector firm in the Fortune 500 list of the world's largest corporations. The company's operations now range from textiles, petrochemicals, power, to telecommunications, financial services, and life sciences.

 Ambani's is not merely a rags-to-riches story; he rose from humble beginnings to not only establish a business empire but also to redefine the way business is done in India. At a time when state-run financial institutions dominated the market, he made public stock offerings and helped to nurture and shape the shareholder culture in India. Though there have been accusations about his business methods; his financial skill and spirit of entrepreneurial adventure were the principal basis of his extraordinary achievement. Ambani was awarded the title of Indian Entrepreneur of the 20th Century by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, and was the first Indian to receive the Wharton School Dean's Medal. He was featured in the Forbes list of the world's billionaires, and voted one of the 50 most powerful men in Asia by Asiaweek magazine.

In June 2005, three years after Dhirubhai's death, the Reliance Group officially broke up, following an ownership feud among its founding members, his sons. Chairman of Reliance Industries Limited, Mukesh Ambani has retained control of the flagship businesses of oil, gas, and chemicals. Younger brother Anil has formed the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, with control over the power, mobile telephony, and financial services businesses.