they hire know where the real power lies lichtenstein said walmart disagreed with lichtensteins interpretation saying the retailer is committed to maintaining a majority independent board it believes that this independence ensures robust oversight independent viewpoints and promotes the boards overall effectiveness a spokesperson for walmart said a model that keeps the family central but delegates management has obvious appeal for someone like ambani given his historyfounded in 1973 as a trading house by mukeshs father dhirajlal hirachand ambani the reliance empire was plunged into uncertainty in 2002 when the patriarch known universally as dhirubhai died without a will that sparked a yearslong battle for control between mukesh and his younger brother anil 62 who were both involved in the business at the timeinitially the siblings worked together with mukesh as chairman and anil vice chairman of reliance then already indias most important company with plans to expand beyond what had become its energy niche but relations grew strained with each believing the other was making decisions without enough consultation mukesh was annoyed when anil once announced a powergeneration project without discussing it while anil was infuriated when his brother restructured the entities that managed the familys reliance shares without his inputat one point anil refused to sign off on reliances financial statements citing what he said were inadequate disclosures and directors at a subsidiary he ran resigned to show their loyaltyunderlying it all was a dispute about the basic nature of the brothers relationship as the elder mukesh saw himself as the natural boss while anil considered himself an equal partner this tussle eventually snowballed into a sort of ambani civil war and three years after dhirubhais death their mother kokilaben was forced to intervenein a 2005 settlement brokered by kokilaben the brothers divvied up reliances assets while anil took the telecommunications assetmanagement entertainment and powergeneration businesses mukesh retained control over the refining petrochemicals oil and gas and textiles operations its a classic case of poor succession management said kavil ramachandran head of the thomas schmidheiny centre for family enterprise at the indian school of business having gone though a bitter process with his brother mukesh ambani definitely wouldnt like to have the play reenacted in his family branchambanis heirs will be taking on an empire very different from the one their father inherited as part of the family detente in his two decades at the helm ambani has transformed reliance owner of the worlds largest crude refining complex the conglomerates diversification has gone into overdrive over the past five years upending indias mobile communications landscape and taking on amazoncom inc and walmart in the countrys budding eretailing space since 2016 reliances market value has more than quadrupled making it indias most valuable company this year the focus has been on building the groups green energy flank a strategic shift for one of the worlds biggest fossilfuel billionaires with the traditional energy industry facing a reckoning and concerns about climate change coming to the fore for investors