Mukesh Ambani, a billionaire who is the owner of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), on Wednesday, said that the US-based Silver Lake will invest ₹ 7,500 crores in its subsidiary, Reliance Retail Ventures Limited (RRVL).
Founded in 1999, Silver Lake is one of the largest technology investors in the world. Silver Lake’s investment will translate into a 1.75 percent stake in RRVL, the firm said in a regulatory filing at the beginning of the market hours. The deal will help support Reliance Industry’s retail presence in the domestic market.
The deal marks the second investment above $1 billion by Silver Lake in a Reliance Industries group company. Their first investment was buying an additional 0.93 percent stake in its digital arm, Jio Platforms, for ₹ 4,546.80 crores this year in June.
Reliance Industries has been dynamically building its retail business by attracting a series of investments this year, which have helped the group become a net debt-free company much ahead of its goal of March 2020.
Silver Lake’s portfolio of investments in some of the largest and successful tech companies globally such as Twitter, Alibaba, Dell Technologies, ANT Financials, Alphabet’s Waymo, and Verily, among others, collectively generates more than $180 billion of revenue annually and employs 295,000 people globally.
In May, Reliance Industries launched JioMart, an online grocery service in a move aimed at rivaling Amazon’s local unit and Walmart’s Flipkart in the huge market.
Currently, a $20 billion stake has been offered by Mukesh Ambani to his tech rival Amazon.inc by Jeff Bezos.
