India’s billionaire businessman Mukesh Ambani is reportedly setting up a family office in Singapore, joining the rush of the world’s ultra-rich opening such entities in the Asian city-state to manage their wealth.
Ambani, the owner of India’s oil-to-telecom conglomerate Reliance Industries, has even hired a manager to recruit other staff for the family office in Singapore, media reports said, quoting sources close to the family.
This comes barely three months after Ambani — the second-richest person in Asia– kickstarted a dynastic succession, handing over the reins of Reliance’s telecom arm Jio to his eldest son Akash.
A family office is basically a private investment entity designed to oversee the wealth of rich individuals, aimed at growing and transferring assets on to their future generations.
Already, many of the world’s ultra-rich have opened their family offices in Singapore — Google co-founder Sergey Brin and British entrepreneur James Dyson to name a few — taking advantage of its low-tax regime.
Last year, Ambani bought a grand 300-acre property in an ultra-upscale locality on the outskirts of London.
Ambani had earlier indicated his plan to split his USD 200 billion business empire among his three children — Akash, Isha and Anant.
Over the past two years, Reliance went on an aggressive fundraising spree to make the conglomerate debt-free, a step to trim its dependence on the flagship oil sector to diversify into telecom and e-commerce.
Source: United News of Bangladesh