Midas touch How Ambani’s revolutionised Reliance

Mukesh Ambani has been diversifying the world’s biggest crude refining operation by amassing dominant positions in telecoms and online retail.

Efforts to revolutionise his $208bn (£156bn) kingdom have been beset with challenges, however.

His attempts to secure the prime spot in India’s trillion-dollar retail market was frustrated by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who blocked a $3.4bn bid to buy the e-commerce firm and Amazon partner, Future Retail.

But Reliance Jio, his telecoms arm, has risen to the top of India’s mobile market with 1.1bn subscribers in just seven years.

Ambani also has a number of UK trophy assets, including Stoke Park, the club that features in the James Bond film