It has been a good year for Asia’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani.
The 62-year-old Indian tycoon added almost US$17 billion to his wealth as of Dec. 23, the most in Asia, taking his net worth to about US$61 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
In comparison, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴) founder Jack Ma’s (馬雲) net worth grew US$11.3 billion, while Amazon.com Inc chief executive officer Jeff Bezos lost US$13.2 billion.
The surge in Ambani’s fortune this year was fueled by a 40 percent jump in the shares of his Reliance Industries Ltd, a conglomerate that is pivoting more toward consumer offerings than its core oil refining and petrochemicals businesses.
The rally in the stock is more than double the gains for India’s benchmark S&P BSE SENSEX during the period.
Investors are piling money on Reliance, betting that newer businesses such as telecommunications and retail could soon unlock value. With a goal of building a local e-commerce giant to challenge the likes of Amazon.com in India, Ambani has spent almost US$50 billion — mostly debt — on a wireless carrier that became India’s No. 1 within three years of debut.
“Mukesh Ambani changed the narrative for Reliance Industries” as a leader not just in oil and gas but also in telecom and retail, and possibly soon in e-commerce as well, said Chakri Lokapriya, chief investment officer at TCG Asset Management in Mumbai.
“He successfully identified, invested and executed rapidly to create this new narrative,” Lokapriya said. “We believe this can potentially double shareholder value over the next four years.”
The newer businesses are likely to contribute 50 percent of Reliance’s earnings in a few years, from about 32 percent now, Ambani said in August.
A representative for Reliance did not reply to an e-mail seeking comment on Ambani’s wealth.
While the success of the phone operator was cause for cheer, the business mogul’s plans to pare Reliance’s debt have sent the company’s stock soaring to a record.
Ambani has vowed to slash the group’s net debt to zero by early 2021.
Plans include a stake sale in Reliance’s oil-to-chemicals business to Saudi Arabian Oil Co, listings of the telecommunications and retail units within five years, sale of tower assets and strategic partners for a digital platform linked to Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd, a telecoms firm.
The value of Reliance’s shares have almost tripled since the end of 2016, when Jio entered the Indian market with free calls and cheap data, and forced some heavily indebted incumbents to exit or merge with rivals.
Still, investors have been wary of the ballooning debt at the group that spent about US$76 billion in the past five years.
Reliance Industries had a net debt of 1.54 trillion rupees (US$21.6 billion) at the end of March 31, Ambani told shareholders in August.
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