Billionaire chairman and managing director of the country's most valued firm - Reliance Industries - is opening family office in Singapore, news agency Bloomberg reported citing people aware of the matter. Ambanis have picked a manager to hire the staff for the new entity and they have also chosen real estate for the office, the report said.
Ambani is the latest in a series of ultra-rich people to pick Singapore for their family offices — the organizations set up to manage the affairs of wealthy clans — joining the likes of hedge fund billionaire Ray Dalio and Google co-founder Sergey Brin.
Singapore has become an attractive hub for family offices thanks to its low taxes and relative security. The Monetary Authority of Singapore estimates about 700 were in place by the end of 2021, up from 400 a year earlier.
Ambani’s move to set up the family office ties in with his larger vision of taking his retail-to-refining empire global and acquiring assets outside India. While announcing the appointment of Aramco’s chairman on the board of Reliance in 2021, the billionaire told his shareholders that this marked “the beginning of internationalization" of his conglomerate, without elaborating. “You will hear more about our international plans in the times to come," he had said at the time.
Earlier this year, Ambani informed shareholders that his children Isha and Akash have assumed leadership roles in Reliance Retail and Reliance Jio and youngest son Anant Ambani has joined the company’s new energy business.
Ambani, who is worth an estimated $83.7 billion according to the Bloomberg Wealth Index, wants the Singapore family office to be running within a year, one of the people said. His wife Nita Ambani is also helping to set it up, the people added.
Reliance has been pivoting from its legacy oil refining and petrochemicals business toward e-commerce, green energy and the expansion of its retail footprint across India. In 2020, its technology venture Jio Platforms Ltd. lured more than $25 billion from marquee Silicon Valley investors including Meta Platforms Inc. and Google. It has also unveiled ambitious plans to take on Amazon.com Inc. in the country, including in streaming.
