According to people familiar with the matter, Reliance Industries Ltd. Chairman Mukesh Ambani is opening a family office in Singapore.
The Mumbai-based billionaire has appointed a manager to engage workers and get the new business up and running, according to the sources, who asked not to be identified since the topic is private. According to one source, the Ambanis have also chosen real estate.
Ambani is the latest in a long line of ultra-rich people to choose Singapore as the location for their family offices – organisations set up to administer the business of affluent families — including hedge fund billionaire Ray Dalio and Google co-founder Sergey Brin.
Ambani’s decision to establish the family office is part of his bigger plan to take his retail-to-refining enterprise worldwide and acquire properties outside of India. While announcing the appointment of Aramco’s chairman to Reliance’s board in 2021, the billionaire informed his shareholders that this signified the “beginning of internationalization” of his firm, without going into further detail. “You will hear more about our foreign aspirations in the coming months,” he stated at the time.
In April 2021, Reliance paid $79 million for Stoke Park Ltd., acquiring a renowned UK location that has served as the scene for two James Bond films. It also paid $98.15 million for an indirect 73.4% ownership in Mandarin Oriental New York in January and a $80 million beach-side house in Dubai this year.
According to one of the persons, Ambani, who is worth an estimated $83.7 billion according to the Bloomberg Wealth Index, wants the Singapore family office to be operational within a year. According to the sources, his wife Nita Ambani is also assisting with the setup.
Reliance has been shifting its focus away from its heritage oil refining and petrochemicals operations and toward e-commerce, green energy, and expanding its retail base across India. In 2020, its technology venture Jio Platforms Ltd. received more than $25 billion in funding from Silicon Valley heavyweights such as Meta Platforms Inc. and Google. It has also announced bold intentions to compete with Amazon.com Inc. in the nation, especially in streaming.
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