Reliance’s gen next: Mukesh Ambani grooms heirs to his $50 billion fortune

Mukesh Ambani has credited his children, Isha and Akash, with helping to nudge him into the internet business.

Among Mumbai’s glitziest society events over the past year were two weddings in the family of Mukesh Ambani, the tycoon who in 2018 became Asia’s richest person.

In December, his 27-year-old daughter Isha got married in a Bollywood-style extravaganza attended by global power brokers and titans of finance. Beyonce sang at the festivities, Hillary Clinton flew in and KKR & Co.’s Henry Kravis made an appearance. In March, her twin brother Akash wed in a ceremony attended by the likes of Google Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai.

The lavish events put Ambani’s eldest children in a very public spotlight at a time when they are playing more visible roles at his Reliance Industries Ltd.’s retail and telecommunications businesses.

Ambani, 62, has big ambitions in new areas like e-commerce and is enlisting his children to help drive the modernization of his empire. The rise of the twins offers early signs of the efforts the titan is making to groom his heirs. The billionaire on August 12 announced that the world’s biggest crude producer, Saudi Aramco, will buy a 20 per cent stake in the oil and chemicals business of Reliance Industries, allowing the Indian conglomerate to reduce the debt that increased during its expansion spree of recent years…

JioCoin: Reliance planning own cryptocurrency, Akash Ambani to lead project

The company aspires to get into the Internet-of-things business and blockchain will help its foray

Reliance Jio is planning to create a cryptocurrency of its own called 'JioCoin', and will put together a young team of 50-odd professionals under Akash Ambani to kickstart the project, a Livemint report claims. The Ambani scion is reportedly interested in developing blockchain technology to aid the development of smart contacts and cryptocurrency payment-enabled supply chains.

Blockchain is a digital ledger that works as a book-keeper for cryptocurrencies.

'Jio' a leap into Reliance's future?

Reliance Jio has disrupted India's telecom sector in the past year-and-a-half by offering services at hyper-competitive prices, forcing other telcos to follow suit.

Reliance Industries, the oil-to-telecom conglomerate that holds Jio is reportedly mulling an IPO in late 2018 or early 2019. The group has already pumped in $31 billion worth of investment in Jio.

The Livemint report quoted a Jio official as saying that the company aspires to get into the Internet-of-things business and blockchain technology is supposed to help its foray.

ALSO READ: How 'Internet of Things' will change the world as we know it

IoT is technology that allows physical objects like wearable technology, smartphones, other electronic devices to be connected. From smart cities to driverless cars and smart factories, and smart homes the Internet of Things is supposed to enter every aspect of people's lives.

Reliance celebrated forty years of its existence a couple of weeks back, where Mukesh Ambani's children- Aakash, Isha, Anant were projected as the petrochemical behemoth's next-generation leaders.

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