Reliance raises $22.43 billion from stake sales at retail, digital arms

Wed Sep 23 2020
Lucy Harlow (4100 articles)
Reliance raises $22.43 billion from stake sales at retail, digital arms

Reliance Industries Ltd RELI.NS, controlled by Asia’s richest man Mukesh Ambani, has raised 1.65 trillion rupees ($22.43 billion) over the past few months through stake sales at its digital unit Jio Platforms and its retail arm Reliance Retail Ventures.

On Wednesday the company announced a $755.1 million investment from KKR & Co Inc KKR.N in its retail arm, giving it a pre-money valuation of 4.21 trillion rupees ($57.28 billion)

– Earlier in September, Reliance raised $1.02 billion from Silver Lake Partners for its retail arm

– The latest investments at Reliance Retail come after the conglomerate raised 1.52 trillion rupees ($20.66 billion) at its digital unit by selling stakes to 13 global investors

– Investors in Jio include Facebook FB.O, Silver Lake, Vista Equity Partners, General Atlantic, KKR & Co KKR.N, Mubadala, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, TPG, L. Catterton, Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, Qualcomm QCOM.O, Intel Corp INTC.O and Alphabet Inc’s GOOGL.O Google

– Reliance has sold nearly 33% in Jio through the stake sales, including a $4.5 billion investment by Google, giving the unit an equity valuation of $59.32 billion

– The stake sales at Jio also helped the conglomerate become net-debt free in June

– Reliance’s shares have risen 173% in the last three years, as of Tuesday’s close. The company’s current market capitalization is at $194.78 bln

– The conglomerate’s telecom unit had 392.7 million subscribers as of May since its launch in late 2016, mainly at the expense of Vodafone Idea VODA.NS. Vodafone Idea lost a fifth of its wireless customers last year and had 309.9 million subscribers as of May

– Reliance’s oil and gas, refining and petrochemical businesses once underpinned its growth, but they have taken a sharp hit as oil prices collapsed. In July, the company reported a nearly 44% fall in quarterly revenue as the COVID-19 pandemic destroyed demand for refined oil products

– In addition to operating the world’s biggest refining complex, Reliance also operates supermarkets and TV channels

Lucy Harlow

Lucy Harlow

Lucy Harlow is a senior Correspondent who has been reporting about Commodities, Currencies, Bonds etc across the globe for last 10 years. She reports from New York and tracks daily movement of various indices across the Globe