Anil Ambani and his wife Tina (L) enter the campus of group company Reliance Infocomm.

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It's not far back that Reliance Retail and Citibank had explored a 50:50 joint venture to distribute the former's consumer finance products such as loans and credit cards.

The joint venture was expected to work as a non-banking financial company, with a combined investment of Rs 500 crore (Rs 5 billion). In fact, Citigroup's then global chairman, Charles Prince, was even supposed to visit India to sign the deal.

Says Hemant Sahai, managing partner of Hemant Sahai Associates - Advocates: "How the strategic balance of the two groups will pan out is tough to predict. But, I feel this agreement tilts in favour of Mukesh Ambani a bit. I feel Anil Ambani had to given in a bit to secure gas supply."

Sahai argues that Mukesh Ambani's businesses are brick and mortar, old-economy manufacturing ones, tough to break into.

While, R-ADAG has the asset-light businesses. "It will be easier for Mukesh Ambani to get into them if he wants to. The financial services, for example. The only thing Anil Ambani may want to farm into is, perhaps, oil exploration," he says.