Grab some popcorn: Mukesh Ambani vs Gautam Adani rivalry is getting intense
Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani tiptoed
around each other for years to reach the top two rungs of Asia’s wealth ladder.
While one of them built an empire in telecom and retail, the other established
a lock on transport and energy distribution. Increasingly, though, the two
billionaires from India’s Gujarat state are starting to overlap, setting the
stage for a clash that could alter the country’s business landscape. Given the
duo’s proximity to politics, the shock is bound to reverberate through the
corridors of power as well.
In the latest sign of their coalescing orbits, the Adani Group has
discussed the idea of buying a stake in Saudi Aramco from the oil-rich
kingdom’s Public Investment Fund, potentially linking the investment to a
broader tie-up or asset swap deal, according to Bloomberg News.
This is just months after Ambani’s Reliance Industries Ltd. and Aramco called
off more than two years of talks to sell 20% of the Indian conglomerate’s
oils-to-chemicals unit to the Saudi behemoth for about $20 billion to $25
billion-worth of Aramco shares. In an attempt to cement the partnership,
Reliance even got Aramco chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan to join its board as an
independent director last year.
Aramco, the No. 1 crude oil producer, is still a better fit with
Ambani’s Reliance, which owns the world’s largest refining complex at Jamnagar
in Gujarat. Reliance is also a leading manufacturer of polymers, polyester and
fiber-intermediates. But, Adani, too, has wanted to enter petrochemicals by
putting up a $4 billion acrylics complex near his Mundra port in Gujarat in
collaboration with BASF SE, Borealis AG, and Abu Dhabi National Oil Co., or
Adnoc. Covid-19 put a dampener on the plan. This wasn’t the first retreat from
his petro-ambitions: Nothing also came of a plant in Gujarat, which was looking
to rope in Taiwan’s CPC Corp.
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