The 80-year-old billionaire, one of India’s richest men, said in a speech at the Mumbai-based Indian School of Business that it is up to the next generation to take over the mantle of entrepreneurship from him.
“The primary duty of a business leader today is to provide a conducive and empowering environment for the next generation to grow,” he said Wednesday.
Ambani said that the motivation for his entire enterprise was the desire to bring about a radical change in people’s lives. “I believe India can rise if we have the courage to take bold and painful decisions,” he said.
India’s stock market surged on his comments, with the benchmark jumping about 1.7% to an all-time high.
Ambani’s comments come days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged entrepreneurs to take risks and work for the welfare of the nation.
Ambani’s firm, Reliance Industries, is the largest private sector employer in India, according to Forbes. The company has operations in energy and petrochemicals, and has a market capitalization of more than $70 billion.
His younger brother Anil Ambani, 59, is the founder of the Reliance Capital investment bank, and a major shareholder in the media group Reliance Media works.
The brothers were thrust into the national spotlight when in 2002 they were locked in a legal dispute over the division of Reliance Industries after their father died.
The brothers struck a deal in 2003 to divide the group and pare the brothers’ stakes.
Mukesh Ambani will transfer the Ambani brothers’ shares in Reliance Industries into a trust, while Anil Ambani will get half the shares in Reliance Capital, according to the deal.
“There was a long-drawn legal battle for three years. Both Mukesh and Anil Ambani kept mum,” said Naveen Munoz, partner at S.R. Bali boy & Co., a Mumbai-based law firm. “Mukesh Ambani took a huge risk to bring peace.”
“Anil Ambani had a great deal of disdain for his brother,” he added.
The brothers remain political rivals in Mumbai, where the Bollywood industry is centered.
In the past, a public spat between the brothers was magnified by the press, who often reported Anil Ambani as calling his brother a liar.
But they reportedly patched up in 2004, when they supported each other’s election bids.
Two years later, Mukesh Ambani pledged to give away half his wealth to charity. He has pledged nearly $4 billion to set up the country’s first All India Institute of Medical Sciences.
The brothers have since launched India’s largest cancer treatment centers, the country’s largest fiber optic cable network and one of the world’s biggest solar power projects.
Ambani’s political ambitions have been thwarted by India’s national election voting rules, which give a powerful role to local party bosses, and are designed to keep communities of different ethnicities and religions from coalescing.
A decade ago, in an effort to become a member of the upper house of parliament, Anil Ambani and his brother contested for the same parliamentary seat. Mukesh Ambani won, but was disqualified after an unsuccessful challenge to the eligibility rules.
“Mukesh Ambani will not challenge the rule again. He has learned the lesson,” said Munoz.
In his speech Wednesday, Mukesh Ambani also praised the government’s reform agenda and Mod’s administration.
The government’s “promise to transform India and put the economy on a higher growth trajectory is irreversible,” he said. “India’s great transformation is underway.”
But he acknowledged that there were many challenges ahead, including the need to create enough jobs for the burgeoning workforce.
In a speech in New Delhi earlier this week, Modish, chief economic adviser Arvind Subramaniam said his party’s biggest challenge would be to provide sufficient jobs to the nearly one-quarter of the population that will be entering the workforce over the next decade.
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