Celebrities from Kim and Khloe Kardashian to boxer Mike Tyson are expected to join some of the biggest names in global business at a lavish family wedding thrown by Asia’s richest person, set to take place Friday in India after months of celebrations.
The wedding of Anant Ambani—youngest son of Reliance Industries Ltd. Chairman Mukesh Ambani—will be attended by luminaries from HSBC Holdings plc Chairman Mark Tucker and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. Chairman Jay Lee to political heavyweights like former UK leaders Boris Johnson and Tony Blair, according to people familiar with the guest list who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Chief executives including Saudi Aramco’s Amin Nasser and BP Plc counterpart Murray Auchincloss are on the list, the people said. So are Emma Walmsley of drug giant GSK Plc, Jim Taiclet of Lockheed Martin and even FIFA President Gianni Infantino.
While the CEOs of firms including Ericsson and HP Inc. are attending, some of the flashier names in tech—including Meta Platforms Inc.’s Mark Zuckerberg, who was present for pre-wedding festivities—don’t appear on the guest list, according to the people.
A representative for Reliance did not offer any immediate comment on the guest list.
Anant Ambani and fiancée Radhika Merchant will become man and wife at the Jio World Centre in central Mumbai, with the event set to be attended by about 1,200 guests who also include Indian lawmakers and government ministers. Mukesh Ambani’s wife Nita Ambani has curated hundreds of local dishes, Bloomberg reported earlier this week. Guest invitations, in the form of miniature temples with gold idols of Hindu gods, have gone viral on social media.
The gathering of the rich and famous comes as the Ambani family is engaged in a succession exercise and massive wealth transfer to its heirs. The 29-year-old groom will be in charge of Reliance’s fledgling green energy business, as the conglomerate diversifies beyond its fossil fuel roots. Only daughter Isha Ambani oversees the retail businesses, while Akash Ambani, the eldest son, is helming the group’s digital ventures.
Still, the lavish festivities are also reportedly annoying some local residents and office workers: City authorities have imposed traffic restrictions from July 12 to 15 around the wedding venue, which happens to be in the heart of Mumbai’s financial district. The curbs on movement around the Bandra Kurla Complex—home to India’s markets regulator, its biggest stock exchange and a slew of foreign banks—has irked locals, with a flurry of posts on X questioning why the government is inconveniencing the public for a private event.
Bankers in the teeming district said they planned to either work from home or other locations on Friday, setting up meetings offsite and telling visitors not to come by their offices this week. They’ve also had to look for new locations for entertaining, given that most restaurants in the area will be closed from Friday.
The wedding is taking place after 134 days of pre-celebrations that have featured visits to the family’s personal zoo, a luxury cruise in Europe, a mass wedding for underprivileged couples and a musical event with Justin Bieber.
The stretch officially kicked off in early March, attended by high profile guests including Zuckerberg, Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates, BlackRock Inc. co-founder Larry Fink, Alphabet Inc. CEO Sundar Pichai and Saudi Aramco’s Chairman Yasir Al Rumayyan.
Nearly a dozen former presidents and prime ministers, alongside top global CEOs and celebrities like Kim Kardashian, are set to attend the wedding festivities of Radhika Merchant and Anant Ambani in Mumbai this weekend. Political heavyweights include Tony Blair, Boris Johnson, and John Kerry, while business moguls like Amin Nasser and Shantanu Narayen will also be present. The celebrations, spanning multiple events including a wedding ceremony and reception, mark the union of Anant Ambani, the youngest son of Mukesh and Nita Ambani, amidst a star-studded guest list from around the world.
Nearly a dozen former presidents and prime ministers will rub shoulders with top global CEOs and Kim Kardashian – the reality show star known to all, with the notable exception of Jackie Chan – at the wedding festivities of Radhika Merchant and Anant Ambani in Mumbai this weekend.
Former UK PMs Tony Blair and Boris Johnson, former US secretary of state John Kerry, former Canadian PM Stephen Harper and former Swedish PM Carl Bildt are among the political heavyweights who will be in attendance, alongside business moguls such as Aramco CEO Amin Nasser, HSBC Group chairman Mark Tucker, Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen, Morgan Stanley MD Michael Grimes, Samsung Electronics chairman Jay Lee, Mubadala MD Khaldoon Al Mubarak, BP CEO Murray Auchincloss, Lockheed Martin CEO James Taiclet, Ericsson CEO Borje Ekholm and Temasek CEO Dilhan Pillay. While Kim and Khloe Kardashian will be the main attractions for celebrity selfie hunters, the intellectually inclined might seek out the futurist Peter Diamandis, the artist Jeff Koons or the self-help guru Jay Shetty.
The festivities mark the culmination of a series of celebrations on the occasion of the union of Radhika Merchant and Anant Ambani, the youngest son of Reliance Industries promoters Nita and Mukesh Ambani.
On the domestic guest list are top political heavyweights, including union cabinet ministers and a number of chief ministers. Among the other business elite in attendance will be HP president Enrique Lores, ADIA board member Khalil Mohammed Sharif Foulathi, Kuwait Investment Authority MD Bader Mohammad Al-Saad, Nokia president Tommi Uitto, GlaxoSmithKline CEO Emma Walmsley, GIC CEO Lim Chow Kiat and Moelis & Co vice chairman Eric Cantor. The guest list also includes Tanzania president Samia Suluhu Hassan, FIFA president Gianni Infantino, IOC vice president Juan Antonio Samaranch and WTO D-G Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.
An intimate wedding ceremony will be held on July 12, the Shubh Aashirwad on July 13 and a reception on July 14 – all at the Jio World Centre in Mumbai’s Bandra Kurla Complex. The wedding festivities began on July 5 with a constellation of Bollywood stars at a sangeet, entertained by popstar Justin Bieber. A haldi ceremony on July 8 and a Shiv-Shakti puja on July 10 at Antilia, the Ambani residence, followed.
The March pre-wedding festivities, held over a weekend at the sprawling wildlife sanctuary Vantara in Jamnagar, had guests such as Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Microsoft’s Bill Gates, Ivanka Trump, Qatar Premier Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani and the king and queen of Bhutan, along with performances by Rihanna and a Moulin Rouge-themed bash. From May 29 to June 1, a Mediterranean luxury cruise from Palermo to Portofino featured more revelry, with Bollywood A-listers such as Ranbir Kapoor, Alia Bhatt and Ranveer Singh being serenaded by Katy Perry, the Backstreet Boys and Pitbull. The party also took over a plaza in Palermo where Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli performed.
Source: Bloomberg, Economic Times
