- Sputnik International
World
Get the latest news from around the world, live coverage, off-beat stories, features and analysis.

US Equity Firm Silver Lake Pours $1 Bn In Second Round Of Investments into Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance

© REUTERS / Rick WilkingU.S. dollars are counted out by a banker counting currency at a bank in Westminster, Colorado November 3, 2009.
U.S. dollars are counted out by a banker counting currency at a bank in Westminster, Colorado November 3, 2009.  - Sputnik International
Subscribe
This past year has seen substantial investments in Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries despite the coronavirus pandemic. In recent months, the oil-to-telecom conglomerate has attracted mega investments worth $15.33 billion, and more money keeps pouring in.

Silver Lake Partners, a US-based private equity firm has decided to invest another round of capital in Reliance – this time in its retail arm. After investing  $1.35 billion in Reliance’s telecom arm Jio earlier this year, the American firm is now purchasing a 1.75 percent stake in Reliance Retail with a fresh investment of $1 billion. 

A customer selects his number of Reliance Jio Infocomm 4G mobile services in Mumbai on September 6, 2016 - Sputnik International
Why Are Global Investors Chasing India's Reliance Industries With Multi-Billion Dollar Investments?

With 12,000 stores nationwide, Reliance Retail serves 640 million customers in India. In a bid to further expand its retail business, Reliance recently acquired all of the wholesale, retail, logistics and warehouse businesses of another top Indian conglomerate, the Future Group, for $3.8 billion.

Ambani, a 63-year old Indian business tycoon commented on the new deal, saying that such partnerships will help create an inclusive platform that will help millions of small Indian merchants. 

“We believe technology will be key to bringing the much-needed transformation in this (retail) sector so that various constituents of the retail ecosystem can collaborate to build inclusive growth platforms,” Ambani said on Wednesday.

Reliance Retail has been planning to digitize Indian SMBs via its network, Jio, which secured major investment from both Facebook and Google earlier this year.

While Facebook invested $5.8 billion in the purchase of a 9.9 percent stake in Reliance Jio, in July Google invested $4.5 billon in Jio platforms and picked up a 7.7 percent stake in India’s largest telco with 387.5 million users. 

The company, which earlier this year became India’s first and only company to have a market capitalization of $160 billion (INR 12 trillion), recently secured second place on the FutureBrand Index 2020 after American tech player Apple. London-based FutureBrand is a management consulting company and its annual index is a global perception study that ranks the world’s top 100 companies by market cap on a perception basis rather than based on financial strength.

 

Newsfeed
0
To participate in the discussion
log in or register
loader
Chats
Заголовок открываемого материала