Watch Paparazzi

Entrepreneur Anant Ambani spotted wearing Richard Mille

Anant Ambani, son of billionaire Mukesh Ambani and a figure increasingly visible on the international luxury circuit, was recently spotted with one of the most technically extreme watches ever strapped to a human wrist: the Richard Mille RM 27-02 Tourbillon Rafael Nadal, a reference limited to just 50 examples globally.

The RM 27-02 was developed in close collaboration with Rafael Nadal and introduced around 2015 as the successor to the RM 27-01. Its defining achievement is a movement — caliber RM27-02 — that is suspended inside the case via a cable tensioning system using braided steel cables just 0.35mm in diameter, each capable of bearing 40 kilograms of tension. This architecture allows the watch to absorb the violent shock loads generated during Nadal's serve, rated at shock resistance up to 10,000 g's. The baseplate and bridges are machined from grade 5 titanium, and the manual-winding tourbillon beats at 21,600 vph with a 70-hour power reserve. The case itself is constructed from Graph TPT — a graphene-infused carbon composite developed with North Thin Ply Technology — giving each example a unique marbled surface pattern that cannot be replicated.

From a collector standpoint, the RM 27-02 occupies a rarefied tier even within Richard Mille's own catalogue. The 50-piece limitation, combined with the complexity of the cable-suspended movement and the Nadal association, makes it one of the brand's most sought-after references on the secondary market. It is the kind of watch that rarely surfaces at auction and almost never through conventional retail channels.

Anant Ambani's affinity for high-complication timepieces is well documented within Indian collector circles. The Ambani family has long been associated with top-tier luxury acquisitions, and Anant's wrist choices reflect a collector sensibility rather than mere status signaling — the RM 27-02 is not simply expensive, it is technically remarkable.

The UK list price was approximately £550,000 at launch, placing it firmly in the ultra-high-net-worth bracket. On the grey market, surviving examples command significant premiums over that already extraordinary retail figure, with transactions rarely disclosed publicly. The Richard Mille RM 27-02 Rafael Nadal remains one of the defining collector references of the past decade.