The Hindu Business Line : Ambani battle may enter the bourses

ALMOST a month after the battle between the two Ambani brothers over the control of Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) began through the media, it now seems that the battle is all set to turn into a full-fledged war.

And this, in all probability, would be fought on their father's favourite battleground: the stock market, the place that the late Dhirubhai is often credited to have nurtured by roping in millions of shareholders to invest their hard-earned money in Reliance.

The market on Friday was agog with rumours that starting Monday, one of the two brothers — "in all probability the younger one" — would pick up shares of Reliance Industries and is ready with an initial "war chest of around Rs 1,000 crore."

According to some veteran market players whom Business Line spoke to, there can be various strategies to fight it out in the market. Stockbrokers say that if one camp starts buying RIL shares from the market, then obviously the other camp would not sit idle and would start buying too. "But there is a limit to which the scrip price can move up over a short or medium-term timeframe, and the one who will be able to spot the peak first and offload at the right moment would be the winner and take away the booty. The Anil camp would certainly like RIL share value to remain high because that would increase his valuation, as and when there is a settlement," they said.

Market sources also said the purchases, if they happen, would be through little-known investment companies whose connections with the brothers would not be very apparent.

Meanwhile, Friday witnessed unprecedented media interest on Mukesh Ambani's whereabouts. Unnamed sources communicated to the media in the morning that Mr Mukesh Ambani would visit Delhi and meet the Law Minister, Mr H.R. Bhardwaj. In the evening, the Anil camp said that Mr Mukesh had indeed met the Law Minister and discussed the proposed changes in the Hindu Succession Act, 1950, which gives equal right to daughters in family property. According to the Anil camp, the elder Ambani had urged the Law Ministry to go slow with the proposed amendment as that "may complicate the Ambani family dispute" further. But Law Ministry officials maintained that the Minister had no such meeting with Mr Mukesh during the day.

On the other hand, the Mukesh camp, late in the evening, said the elder Ambani had indeed come to Delhi and had three meetings.

According to them, Mr Mukesh met the Finance Minister as also the Communications Minister, Mr Dayanidhi Maran. The third meeting "was personal in nature," they maintained.

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