One of the biggest portfolios of power projects in India, owned by the country’s second-richest resident, will make what is expected to be the largest listing on the Bombay Stock Exchange today.

Reliance Power, part of the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, a conglomerate spanning telecommunications, finance and entertainment, starts trading next month after a $3 billion (£1.5 billion) initial public offering (IPO). It is the first in a $10 billion pipeline of infrastructure and power companies coming to market this year.

The offer marks the first time that Anil Ambani has tapped the capital markets since his acrimonious split in 2005 from Mukesh Ambani, his elder brother, India’s richest man and chairman of the country’s largest company by market capitalisation.

Due to delays caused by a campaign of complaints purportedly from minority shareholders, Reliance Power’s offer of 10 per cent of its equity, or 260 million shares, was approved by the stock market regulator only in the past three weeks.

The process of bringing the company to market exposed still-simmering tensions between the two brothers. A total of 159 complaints against the IPO were filed with various government agencies while opponents orchestrated an anonymous blogging campaign.

The campaign was led apparently by a forum of small investors, who claimed that power assets had been illegally transferred from Reliance Energy, the parent company. Mukesh Ambani, whose businesses span oil, petrochemicals, textiles and retail, denied allegations of interfering or being involved with the attack. The regulator eventually dismissed the complaints, allowing Reliance Power to file a final prospectus.

The sibling rivalry, according even to their friends, is driven by ego and the desire to rise to the top of the corporate ladder in India. Forbes magazine puts Mukesh Ambani’s wealth at $49 billion and Anil’s at $45 billion.

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