The Big, Fat Ambani Wedding Celebrates A Match Among India's Billionaire Elite

 

The Big, Fat Ambani Wedding Celebrates A Match Among India's Billionaire Elite

Naazneen Karmali Forbes Staff

 

I write about India's wealth creators.

Forbes 

Dec 11, 2018, 02:35pm

The new power couple flanked by their parents Mukesh and Nita Ambani (right), Ajay and Swati Piramal (left) and Anant Ambani (extreme left).

Mukesh Ambani’s obsession with mega projects, a trait he inherited from his late father, Dhirubhai Ambani, founder of the $60 billion (revenue) Reliance Industries, will be on display in Mumbai this week in a very personal way. Asia’s richest person, whose interests span oil and gas to telecom, and his wife Nita, are hosting India’s biggest, fattest wedding ever, that of their daughter Isha to Anand Piramal, son of pharma billionaire Ajay Piramal, who controls listed Piramal Enterprises. The young couple are no strangers to each other; the Piramals have long been part of the Ambanis' inner circle of friends.

The 7-day extravaganza was kicked off last weekend when a fleet of jets brought an estimated 1,200 people to the lake city of Udaipur, a tourist hotspot in Rajasthan state. The pre-wedding festivities were capped by a performance by singer Beyonce, who reportedly commands a nightly guarantee of at least $3 million at festivals like Coachella, where she likely doubled her haul by playing back-to-back weekends in 2018.

 “ It was of course, over the top but out of this world, “ says a billionaire, who was among the attendees. The cost of the lavish celebrations, as per some reports, is estimated at $100 million but a Reliance spokesman claims that it is no more than $15 million. 

The celebrity-packed guest list in Udaipur included former U.S.Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a galaxy of Bollywood stars, several multinational CEOs, bankers and billionaire pals of the families, both of whom are extremely well-connected. Business rivalries tend to be set aside on such occasions; billionaires Kumar Birla and Sunil Mittal, whose telecom ventures have been pounded by Ambani’s low-cost Jio service, showed up. So did steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal, metals magnate Anil Agarwal and billionaire banker Uday Kotak, among a host of others.

The contingent of international guests included several heavy- hitters with ties to the two business tycoons, such as Bill Winters, group CEO, Standard Chartered; Goldman Sachs’ Asia boss Kenneth Hitchner, BP CEO Bob Dudley, Jae-Yong Lee, Samsung’s vice chairman and Ericsson CEO Börje Ekholm.

The Ambanis with Hillary Clinton.

The wedding ceremony, to be held in Ambani’s $1 billion sky palace in south Mumbai on December 12, is expected to draw 600 guests. The Piramals, a clan with roots in textiles, which under Ajay Piramal made a timely and lucrative shift into pharmaceuticals, are hosting an evening at their brand new sea-facing mansion in mid-town Mumbai.  A wedding reception for 5,000 people is scheduled to be held at the sprawling Jio Garden in Mumbai’s suburban financial district.The celebrations will be rounded off by a reception for 2,000 employees of Reliance and Piramal Enterprises.

The Isha-Anand pairing follows the long-held tradition among India’s wealthy elite to cement ties through marriage. With a net worth of $43 billion, Ambani has been India’s richest person for 11 years in a row. Piramal, though with a much more modest fortune of $4.2 billion, hails from a family with a longer business history; his grandfather got into textiles in 1934. With a reputation as a shrewd dealmaker, Ajay has grown his empire through well-timed acquisitions. In 2010, he sold a chunk of his pharma business to Abbott Laboratories for $3.8 billion and has since invested in financial services and real estate. The latter business is under the Harvard-educated bridegroom’s charge.

There are numerous other examples of such moneyed matches: motorcycle magnate Rahul Bajaj’s nephew Kushagra is married to Kumar Birla’s sister Vasavadatta;  Construction tycoon Pallonji Mistry’s daughter is the wife of Noel Tata from the respected Tata clan; Autoparts billionaire Abhay Firodia's daughter Sribala’s husband is developer Sagar Chordia, who is one of Trump's Indian partners and has featured among India's richest in the past. 

 But the age-old tradition of marriages ‘arranged’ by parents is fraying as members of the next-gen, who are mostly educated overseas, nowadays prefer to choose their own partners even though they may not be in the same wealth league. “ In the past, family lineage was a major factor. Now it’s all about compatibility, ”says a veteran banker.  Piramal’s daughter Nandini, for example, is married to Peter DeYoung, an American, whom she met at Stanford.

The Ambani sons, Akash and Anant, have decided to follow their hearts too. Akash is set to marry his high school sweetheart Shloka Mehta, daughter of a diamond magnate, in March 2019. The wedding will be held at the Ambani home with a reception planned at Jio World Center, an upcoming mixed-use development in suburban Mumbai that will feature a convention space, among much else. Youngest son Anant’s girlfriend hails from a family with interests in polymers and gums. Their marriage, though yet to be announced, is rumoured to be sometime in the winter of 2019.

I am the India Editor of Forbes Asia and Mumbai bureau manager of Forbes. From Mumbai, I track the wealth of India's richest and also oversee the rich lists for Singapore and Thailand. Earlier, I was managing editor of Business India, among India's leading business magazines...