Private equity firm Silver Lake Partners on Wednesday announced that it will invest Rs 7,500 crore in the retail arm of Reliance Industries for a 1.75% stake.
The investment values Reliance Retail at a pre-money equity value of Rs 4.21 trillion, Reliance said in a statement. “Silver Lake’s investment will translate into a 1.75% equity stake in RRVL [Reliance Retail Ventures Limited] on a fully diluted basis,” it added.
This is the second billion-dollar investment by Silver Lake, the world’s largest tech investor, in a Reliance Industries subsidiary after it picked up a 2.08% stake for $1.35 billion investment in Jio Platforms earlier this year.
With the latest investment, Jio Platforms and Reliance Retail account for over Rs 9 lakh crore of RIL valuation, according to Money Control.
“Reliance Retail Limited, a subsidiary of RRVL, operates India’s largest, fastest growing and most profitable retail business serving close to 640 million footfalls across its ~12,000 stores nationwide,” the statement said. “Reliance Retail’s vision is to galvanise the Indian retail sector through an inclusive strategy serving millions of customers by empowering millions of farmers and micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) and working closely with global and domestic companies as a preferred partner, to deliver immense benefits to Indian society, while protecting and generating employment for millions of Indians.”
Reliance Industries Chairperson Mukesh Ambani said the deal with Silver Lake was part of the company’s “efforts of building an inclusive partnership with millions of small merchants while providing value to Indian consumers across the country in the Indian retail sector”. “Silver Lake will be an invaluable partner in implementing our vision for Indian Retail,” he said.
Egon Durban, Silver Lake co-chief executive officer and managing partner said Reliance’s new commerce strategy could become the “disruptor of this decade”.
“Mukesh Ambani and his team at Reliance have created an outstanding world leader in retail and technology through their courageous vision, commitment to societal benefits, innovation excellence and relentless execution,” he added. “The success of JioMart in such a short time span, especially while India, along with the rest of the world, battles the COVID-19 pandemic, is truly unprecedented, and the most exciting growth phase has just begun...We are thrilled to have been invited to partner with Reliance in their mission for Indian Retail.”
Silver Lake is an investor in some of the largest and successful tech companies of the world such as Twitter, Airbnb, Alibaba, Dell Technologies, ANT Financials, Twitter and other global technology leaders. On August 30, Reliance acquired the retail and logistics businesses of Future Group for Rs 24,713 crore to boost its retail vertical.
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