remember this story was written in July 2011….in fact on 10 July….

Did anybody tell Dhirubhai Ambani that he was very lucky?

Take a ‘Taleb’ian view on the success of the late Dhirubhai Ambani. He was a simple man, not very educated, perhaps very well focused, and dammit, GODDAMN LUCKY. Make no mistake there may have been many a persons willing to work harder, smarter, with stealth, but not as successful.

The results that Dhiubhai got for his efforts were phenomenal and that is what one means by saying he was lucky. He had a high market capitalisation, but never got a high price-earning ratio. This is the market language for ‘we trust your cash for this year, but do not trust that next year it will be the same’. People have held on to the shares, but have not seen any super normal returns for a long time now.

I dare say if you invested in all the RELIANCE sounding IPOs and NFOs, you would have got returns less than PPF or perhaps even less than a SAVINGS bank account. For the less tolerant investors like yours truly, Reliance only meant Reliance Industries. I have stayed away from Anil Ambani group. Have also stayed away from the Reliance mutual fund, life insurance, etc. Even then I do not think scorching returns is what I got. I must add that when the brothers started fighting, I got rid of 90% of Reliance Industries too…and even when I heard that the settlement was happening I did not re-enter the stock. No regrets, will stay away.

Somebody has to tell the sons of Dhirubhai that D Ambani was a lucky man, in less competitive times.

Mukesh is losing people, losing face, he has a lot of old people at the top who may not be in tune. Thanks to RTI, more active media, bloggers, etc. ‘managing the environment’ may not really be easy.

Anil has atleast 3 people in jail. April, May, June, July – 3 executives inside Tihar for 4 months. This is not a great advertisement to attract talent. He should be thrilled that there is no great rush out of top talent. Or it is well hidden from the media.

Is this how the beginning of the end looks?

Sucheta has some more things to say in her article..but she is NOT calling it the ‘beginning of the end’. I think without any cash flows, a bleeding financial services business, a call dropping telephone service, a poorly managed electricity distribution business, a ego driven entertainment business,  …Anil may have time running out. He may have to seen do a sashtang pranam to Mukesh to be just alive! And Mukesh may not be able to help Anil unless he gets some moolah from somewhere…..