Silver Lake Backs Reliance Jio Again With INR 4,546 Cr Funding To Grab 2.08% Stake

Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), on Friday (June 5), announced that private equity firm Silver Lake along with its co-investors will pump in additional INR 4,546.80 Cr in RIL’s digital entity, Jio Platforms.

With this investment, Silver Lake’s investment in Jio Platforms has increased to INR 10,202.55 Cr, acquiring a 2.08% equity stake in Jio Platforms on a fully diluted basis. For this transaction, Jio Platforms was valued at an INR equity value of INR 4.91 lakh Cr and an enterprise value of INR 5.16 Lakh Cr. Last month, Jio Platforms had announced that it is raising INR 5,655 Cr from firm Silver Lake.

Silver Lake has approximately $40 Bn as combined assets under management and committed capital. The company focuses on tech and tech-enabled opportunities and has invested in companies like Airbnb, Alibaba, ANT Financials, Alphabet’s Verily and Waymo units, Dell, Twitter and more.

Mukesh Ambani, chairman and managing director, Reliance Industries, said that Silver Lake’s additional investment in Jio Platforms, within a span of five weeks during the Covid-19 pandemic, is a strong endorsement of the intrinsic resilience of the Indian economy.

Earlier in the day, RIL had announced that Mubadala Investment Company (Mubadala), the Abu Dhabi-based sovereign investor, will invest INR 9,093.60 Cr in Jio Platforms for a 1.85% equity stake.

In less than six weeks, Jio Platforms has raised INR 92,202.15 Cr from leading technology and private equity investors. This includes massive INR 43,574 Cr investment from Facebook which bought a 9.99% stake in Jio Platforms. Other Jio investors include Vista Equity Partners, General Atlantic and KKR.

Meanwhile, the company is currently in talks with other Middle East-based sovereign funds including Saudi Arabia’s $320 Bn Public Investment Fund (PIF) to get more funds.

Jio Platforms is RIL’s umbrella company which brings platforms like Reliance Jio, Jio Fiber, MyJio, JioTV, JioCinema, Jio Mart JioNews and JioSaavn under one banner. Recently, the company was also reported to be in talks for an overseas public listing. However, the stock exchange for the listing hasn’t been decided yet. The company is planning to list itself over the next 12 to 24 months, but no final decision has been taken on the timeline and size of the listing.

Besides Jio Platforms, rival companies Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea are also in talks with tech-based companies to raise fresh funding to challenge the digital empire Jio is building. While Bharti Airtel is raising around $2 Bn from ecommerce major Amazon, debt-ridden Vodafone Idea is said to be in early discussions with tech giant Google.

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