What an own goal by Mukesh Ambani. The Mr Big of Indian business risks losing credibility by prolonging a tiresome feud with his estranged younger brother, Anil, even though they have been running different businesses since they acrimoniously divided up Reliance in 2005. On Friday, the older brother scored a pyrrhic victory when MTN, a South African telecoms group, terminated merger talks with Anil’s Reliance Communications, the second-largest Indian mobile operator. MTN’s move came after Mukesh initiated proceedings against RCom, claiming that he had right of first refusal over Anil’s 66 per cent stake in the operator. Faced with such an opponent, MTN had little choice but to withdraw.

One can only guess at Mukesh’s motives. But if RCom had pulled off a deal with the Johannesburg-based telecoms group, Anil would have become the controlling shareholder of an entity with forecast earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation in 2009 of $10bn. Given that Reliance Industries, the diversified petrochemicals behemoth that Mukesh controls, is expected to have 2009 ebitda of $7bn, this would have threatened the older brother’s “natural” pre-eminence within the first family of Indian business. The family, however, will now pay a high price for this behaviour, since it pushes up the cost of doing business for all Reliance entities.