Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries Ltd.’s digital arm, Jio Platform is expected to receive an additional cash inflow of $602 million from existing investors Silver Lake Partners along with its investing partners.
The US private equity firm and its co-investors will take a 2.1% stake in Reliance’s Jio Platforms. The arrangement follows Silver Lake’s first investment of $750 billion made last month. Silver Lake has about $40 billion in assets under its control, including stakes in Twitter Inc, Dell Technologies Inc and movie theatre chain AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc.
Jio Platforms consolidates Reliance Industries’ digital assets with its wireless carrier, Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd., into a holding organization proposed at becoming a top e-commerce and payment operator in the Indian market. The latest transaction helps boost Mr. Ambani’s strategy to move his conglomerate away from oil and petrochemicals toward faster-growing consumer businesses.
The digital unit has now raised about $12 billion in less than six weeks from a lineup of high-profile investors including Facebook Inc. and US investment organization KKR & Co. Reliance had revealed yesterday that Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund Mubadala Investment Co. would invest $1.2 billion in Jio Platforms which is now valued at about $65 billion.
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund are also in high-level discussions to buy ownership in Jio Platforms
Reliance intends to close most of its private fundraising within the next 3 months before weighing a 2021 public listing in the United States, where it is looking for a valuation of $90 billion to $95 billion for the unit.
