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RCoM net profit up 86% at Rs 1,304 crRCoM net profit up 86% at Rs 1,304 crREL to transfer infra projects to subsidiaryReliance Capital Q2 net up 20% at 201.28 cr

: India has few large private firms for the same reason that it has few large private farms: traditions of inheritance that divide assets rather than giving them to the first-born. Still, most family firms survive until the third generation before splitting. Reliance may prove an exception. A bitter dispute between the founder's two sons may lead to a reorganisation of India's biggest private-sector group, whose interests include oil and gas, the world's largest polyester maker and India's biggest mobile-telephony firm.

Sibling rivalry at Reliance has been rumoured ever since its founder, Dhirubhai Ambani, died in 2002. In little more than two decades he had built it into a giant business. His two sons, Mukesh and Anil, bickered even before his death. After he died they fell out so badly that they have not met in private for more than a year.

There is plenty to fight about. The market values Reliance Industries at about $17 billion. The family controls 46% of the shares, 12.6% through an investment trust, the rest through hundreds of companies whose ownership is obscure. Reliance Industries in turn has big stakes in Infocomm and Reliance Energy, a listed company run by Anil, which is India's biggest private-sector power utility. On November 25th six directors resigned from the board of Reliance Energy, denting its share price. This was seen as a move to undermine Anil, and suggested that the battle will cover the whole group....

What caused the rift between the brothers is hotly debated. The Times of India blamed their wives' mutual antipathy. Mukesh is cerebral and introverted. Anil runs marathons and consorts with the glitterati. In July, he joined India's Upper House of Parliament as a nominated member. Are his political activities the trouble? No, say his supporters. They blame the ambitions of Mukesh's wife, and his determination to secure the succession for her and for their children.

Both brothers have bragged of their companies' professionalism and ability to compete internationally-a rebuff to critics who accuse Reliance of thriving through political influence rather than sheer commercial merit. But a lengthy legal wrangle could make a mockery of these claims.

—Economist November 2004