How a $20 million yacht for Tina Ambani became a case study in ‘corporate sleight’

In the middle of the 2008 global financial crisis, Anil Ambani bought a luxury yacht worth US$ 20 million to gift it to his wife Tina Ambani.

Seventeen years later, an investigation by Cobrapost, highlighting alleged financial irregularities worth more than Rs 41,921 crore involving the Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani (ADA) Group, has claimed that the yacht was bought using funds from the now defunct Reliance Communication (RCOM).

The yacht, named Tian – “Ti” for Tina and “An” for Anil – even featured in a blog post by columnist Shobhaa De (on April 14 2012), who wrote: “Don’t feel like writing... no movies to watch.... oil in my hair... not fun, for sure! But I have to tell you what happened a couple of nights ago - Tina A. was so kicked with the ‘Hello!’ coverage, she did what very few celebs do - invited the entire ‘Hello’ team for sunset champagne on ‘Tiaan’, her magnificent yacht.”

De writes, “Tina enjoys her bubbly and seafood, especially while chilling with close friends on the deck of ‘Tian’, the yacht she happily admits Anil bought for her and the boys. Anil himself gets seasick. ‘The yacht is my space. It is so calming,’ declares Tina, her eyes shining.”

“The yacht created quite a buzz in the media,” the Cobrapost report said, “some comparing it with a corporate jet that elder brother Mukesh Ambani had just gifted his wife Nita Ambani”.

What was considered a glamorous purchase back then, doesn’t seem to have that sparkling a story of how it was purchased.

Cobrapost’s findings

The report claims that around Rs 28,874 crore was siphoned from listed group companies through loans, IPO proceeds, and bonds, while another Rs 13,047 crore (US$1.53 billion) was allegedly raised via external commercial borrowings and routed back into India through offshore entities, suggesting possible money laundering.

The alleged transactions involved several group firms, including Reliance Communications, Reliance Capital, Reliance Home Finance, Reliance Commercial Finance, Reliance Corporate Advisory Services, and Reliance Infrastructure. “We have also unearthed how some of the entities involved in the fraud were rechristened many times and merged with either the promoter-group entities or made to disappear to cover the tracks and conceal the identity of the ultimate beneficiary of what emerges as an elaborate schematic of deception,” the Cobrapost report alleged.

Newslaundry has sent queries to Anil Ambani’s office. We will carry his version as and when we get a reply.

Tracing the yacht’s financing trail

As per the Cobrapost investigation, this was the modus operandi used to acquire the yacht:

1. Ammolite Holdings Limited, a company based in Jersey, was used to charter a yacht for about $400,000.

2. RCOM sent money to another group company called Reliance Transport & Travels, saying it was for a complete buyout. This made it look like an internal business transaction.

3. Then, payment was made directly to the Italian yacht maker (Ferretti SPA), but the instruction to do so came from Ammolite Holdings.

4. On paper, the money leaving RCOM wasn’t shown as being used for a yacht. Instead, it was said to be a loan from RCOM to Reliance Transport & Travels through another company called Gateway Net Trading, supposedly to buy 10 million mobile handsets. Ammolite Holdings was said to be the supplier of these handsets. But in reality, Ammolite had no experience selling phones, it was allegedly just a shell company.

5. No phones were ever bought. The money meant for handsets was instead used to buy the yacht from Ferretti SPA in Italy.

6. After the yacht was purchased, Reliance Capital, which owned 50 percent of Ammolite Holdings, quietly wrote off (cancelled) its investment in Ammolite, meaning it accepted the loss and removed it from its books.

Reliance Communication’s financial health in 2008

In 2008, RCOM was India’s second-largest telecom operator after Bharti Airtel, operating across mobile, broadband, and enterprise services.

According to its 2007–08 annual report, RCOM reported total revenue of Rs 22,642 crore (about $5.5 billion) and a net profit of Rs 5,401 crore ($1.3 billion), up from Rs 4,458 crore the previous year. Its subscriber base grew 58 percent year-on-year to over 48 million.

While its debt of Rs 10,000 crore appeared manageable at the time, it later spiralled as the company expanded aggressively.

During this period, RCOM was in expansion mode. Having started as a primarily CDMA-based network, it was now investing heavily in GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) services, fiber optic infrastructure, tower networks, and submarine cables. The company also explored an IPO for its tower arm, Reliance Infratel, though the plan was shelved amid market uncertainty.

The collapse

Beneath this picture of growth, however, warning signs had begun to emerge. The company’s capital expenditure (CapEx) was soaring, financed largely through loans, pushing its debt higher.

The Indian telecom market was entering a phase of intense price wars, with Airtel, Vodafone, and Idea competing on tariffs and network expansion. RCOM’s late transition from CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) to GSM also put it at a strategic disadvantage, as consumer preference shifted rapidly toward GSM networks.

In the stock market, RCOM mirrored the highs and lows of India’s telecom story. At the start of 2008, its shares traded between Rs 700 and Rs 800, valuing the company at over Rs 150,000 crore. But by the end of the year, after the global financial crisis, the stock had plunged below Rs 200. Investor confidence waned as concerns grew over RCOM’s debt-fueled expansion.

As competition intensified and tariffs plummeted, the company’s revenues began to stagnate while its debt burden grew uncontrollably. Costly spectrum purchases, failed mergers, and an inability to keep pace with rapidly evolving technology, from 3G to 4G, further weakened its position. By the mid-2010s, RCOM was struggling to stay afloat in a market increasingly dominated by Airtel, Vodafone, and later, Reliance Jio.

By 2017, RCOM shut down most of its mobile operations, and within a few years, it slipped into insolvency proceedings.

If Cobrapost’s allegations hold, Tian isn’t just a symbol of luxury, it’s a reminder of how far some corporate empires may go to keep the illusion of success afloat.

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