Finance

Ambani’s Plan to Upend Indian Finance Lands With a Thud

A new initiative combines insurance, lending, stock trading and a partnership with BlackRock into a single offering, but details remain scarce.

Mukesh Ambani
Illustration: Jasjyot Singh Hans for Bloomberg Businessweek

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By Preeti Singh, Chris Kay, and Sanjai P R

September 20, 2023 at 4:01 AM UTC

This article is for subscribers only.

This article is part of the September 25, 2023 issue of businessweek.

Once a year, Mukesh Ambani—the publicity-shy Indian tycoon who’s Asia’s richest man—makes a widely anticipated speech to shareholders of his conglomerate, Reliance Industries Ltd. He typically serves up grand announcements, and A-list guests such as Satya Nadella and Sundar Pichai often make cameos. This year’s version landed with something of a thud.

During the Aug. 28 address, Larry Fink, the chief executive officer of BlackRock Inc., made a surprise appearance by video link. The reason: to show support for a new joint venture with Jio Financial Services Ltd. (JFS), a unit that Ambani had spun out of Reliance a week earlier with a listing in Mumbai.