so that it also dealt in refining and petrochemicals. The business also included products and services in the retail and telecommunications industries. Reliance Retail Ltd., another subsidiary, is also the largest retailer in India. Reliance's Jio has earned a top-five spot in the country's telecommunication services since its public launch on 5 September 2016. As of 2016, Ambani was ranked as the 36th richest person in the world, and has consistently held the title of India's richest person on Forbes magazine's list for the past ten years. He is the only Indian businessman on Forbes' list of the world's most powerful people. As of October 2020, Mukesh Ambani was ranked by Forbes as the 6th-wealthiest person in the world. He surpassed Jack Ma, executive chairman of Alibaba Group, to become Asia's richest person with a net worth of $44.3 billion in July 2018. He is also the wealthiest person in the world outside North America and Europe. As of 2015, Ambani ranked fifth among India's philanthropists, according to China's Hurun Research Institute. He was appointed as a Director of Bank of America and became the first non-American to be on its board. Through Reliance, he also owns the Indian Premier League franchise Mumbai Indians and is the founder of the Indian Super League, a football league in India. In 2012, Forbes named him one of the richest sports owners in the world. He resides at the Antilia, one of the world's most expensive private residences with its value reaching $1 billion. Timeline 1980s–1990s In 1980, the Indian government under Indira Gandhi opened PFY (polyester filament yarn) manufacturing to the private sector. Dhirubhai Ambani applied for a license to set up a PFY manufacturing plant. Obtaining the license was a long-drawn-out process requiring a strong connection within the bureaucracy system because the government, at the time, was restricting large-scale manufacturing, making the importation of yarn for the textiles impossible. In spite of stiff competition from Tatas, Birlas and 43 others, Dhirubhai was awarded the license, more commonly addressed as License Raj. To help him build the PFY plant, Dhirubhai pulled his eldest son out of Stanford in 1981, where he was studying for his MBA, to work with him in the company. Ambani did not return to his university program, as he was in charge of Reliance's vertical integration, from textiles into polyester fibers and further into petrochemicals, which the yarns