Dhirajlal Hirachand Ambani

Dhirajlal Hirachand Ambani also known as Dhirubhai Ambani  (28 December 1932 – 6 July 2002) was an Indian business magnate and entrepreneur who founded Reliance Industries, a petrochemicals, communications, power, and textiles conglomerate and the only privately owned Indian company in the Fortune 500. Ambani took his company public in 1977. Dhirubhai has been one among the select Forbes billionaires and has also figured in the Sunday Times list of top 50 businessmen in Asia.His life has often been referred to as a true "rags to riches" story.

Childhood

 

                 He was born into a Sindhi family. Hirachand Gordhandhas Ambani the father of Dhirubhai Ambani and he was a village school teacher with little income. Hirachand and Jamnaben had two daughters - Trilochanaben and Jasuben and three sons  Ramnikbhai, Dhirubhai and Natubhai. Dhirubhai Ambani was the second son.Dhirubhai was precocious and highly intelligent. He was also highly impatient of the oppressive grinding mill of the school classroom. He chose work which used his physical ability to the maximum rather than cramming school lessons. When Jamnaben once asked Dhirubhai and Ramnikbhai to help his father by earning money, he angrily replied, "Why do you keep screaming for money? I will make heaps of money one day". On weekends, he began setting up onion/potato fries stall at village fairs and made extra money which he gave his mother. He also used to sell milk powder to make his income before that and luckily he turned to become a great man.

This Video is the complete story of Dhirubhai Ambhani.

As An Entrepreneur

           Dhirubhai started off as a small time worker with Arab merchants in the 1950s and moved to Mumbai in 1958 to start his own business in spices. After making modest profits, he moved into textiles and opened his mill near Ahmedabad. Dhirubhai founded Reliance Industries in 1958 and today the company, with over 85,000 employees, provides almost 5% of the Central Government's total tax revenue. Ambani was credited with introducing the stock market to the average investor, and thousands of investors attended the Reliance annual general meetings, which were sometimes held in a football stadium, with millions more watching on television.                  

Reliance After Dhirubhai

In 1986 after a heart attack he handed over Reliance Group to his sons Mukesh and Anil. After his death (6 July 2002), the group was split into Reliance Industries, headed by Mukesh Ambani and Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (Reliance ADAG), led by Anil Ambani.

The Reliance empire was split between the Ambani brothers, Mukesh Ambani getting RIL and IPCL & his younger sibling Anil Ambani heading Reliance Capital, Reliance Energy and Reliance Infocomm. The entity headed by Mukesh Ambani is referred to as the Reliance Industries Limited whereas Anil's Group has been renamed Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (Reliance ADA Group).

Reliance Institute of Life Sciences, a Dhirubhai Ambani Foundation Initiative, was established to promote higher education in various fields of life sciences and related technologies