Indian tycoon bid to settle family feud rebuffed

NEW DELHI — Indian tycoon Anil Ambani has extended an olive branch to his brother to settle an ugly feud stemming from a family pact splitting their corporate empire but his overture has been rebuffed.

After firing nearly daily volleys at his older brother Mukesh Ambani, Anil invoked "divine blessings" ahead of Diwali, the Festival of Lights and a key event on the Hindu calendar, and announced he wanted a reconciliation.

In a statement he said was made with a "generous heart", Anil, 50, declared at the weekend, following a religious pilgrimage, that a settlement would be a present for their ageing mother.

But Mukesh, 52, said he found it hard to believe that his brother had undergone a "real change of heart" and sincerely wanted an end to the mud-slinging corporate soap opera that has riveted the nation.

Analysts on Monday dismissed the peace overture as a public relations gimmick even as shares of firms controlled by the billionaire siblings rose on hopes they would make up.

Anil's offer came just over a week before India's Supreme Court is to hear the brothers' dispute which centres on a natural gas contract involving output from India's most important gas field, the Krishna-Godavari basin.

Mukesh said in a statement issued through his company, Reliance Industries Ltd, that he welcomed the change from what he called the "negative" campaign Anil had waged.

But the dispute "can now only be decisively resolved by a decision of the highest court," he said.

The issue "transcends any private differences between two brothers", Mukesh said.

The Supreme Court is to open hearings in the case October 20.

The seeds of the feud lie in a deal between the brothers slicing up the Reliance telecoms-to-energy empire built by their rags-to-riches father Dhirubhai Ambani, who died in 2002 leaving no will.

In the 2005 family pact, Mukesh agreed to sell 28 million cubic metres of gas per day to his brother's energy company at a price of 2.34 dollars per million British thermal unit (mBtu) for 17 years.


PRAVESH YADAV

PGDM 1st sem

2009-11