After Facebook invested over Rs 43,000 crore in Jio platforms last month, Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) has announced that US private equity firm Silver Lake will invest Rs 5,655 crore (nearly $750 million) into Jio platforms.
This investment values Jio platforms at an equity value of Rs 4.90 lakh crore and an enterprise value of Rs 5.15 lakh crore, representing a 12.5 per cent premium to the equity valuation of the Facebook investment announced on April 22.
“I am delighted to welcome Silver Lake as a valued partner in continuing to grow and transform the Indian digital ecosystem for the benefit of all Indians,” said Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director, RIL.
Reliance Industries on April 30 said that it has received strong interest from investors, and major investments into Jio Platforms, in the line with Facebook’s investment, may be announced in the coming months.
Silver Lake has an outstanding record of being a valuable partner for leading technology companies globally.
“Silver Lake is one of the most respected voices in technology and finance. We are excited to leverage insights from their global technology relationships for the Indian Digital Society’s transformation,” Mukesh Ambani added.
Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited, which provides connectivity platform to over 388 million subscribers, will continue to be a wholly-owned subsidiary of Jio Platforms.
“Jio Platforms is one of the world’s most remarkable companies, led by an incredibly strong and entrepreneurial management team who are driving and actualizing a courageous vision,” said Egon Durban, Silver Lake Co-CEO and Managing Partner.
“The market potential they are addressing is enormous, and we are honored and pleased to have been invited to partner with Mukesh Ambani and the team at Reliance and Jio to help further the Jio mission,” he noted.
Jio’s vision is to enable a Digital India for 1.3 billion people and businesses throughout India, especially small merchants, micro-businesses and farmers.
With approximately $40 billion in combined assets under management and committed capital and a singular focus on the world’s great tech and tech-enabled opportunities, Silver Lake is the global leader in large-scale technology investing.
Its investments includes Airbnb, Alibaba, Ant Financial, Alphabet’s Verily and Waymo units, Dell Technologies, Twitter and several other global technology leaders.
According to a RIL statement, the investment by Silver Lake is further testament to the world-class digital platform that Jio has built, powered by leading technologies such as broadband connectivity, smart devices, Cloud and edge computing, Big Data analytics, Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things, Augmented and Mixed Reality and Blockchain.
The transaction is subject to regulatory and other customary approvals and Morgan Stanley acted as financial advisor to Reliance Industries and AZB & Partners and Davis Polk & Wardwell acted as legal counsels.
RIL reported consolidated turnover of Rs 659,205 crore ($87.1 billion), cash profit of Rs 71,446 crore ($9.4 billion) and net profit of Rs 39,880 crore ($5.3 billion) for the first quarter of this year.
Facebook last month poured in Rs 43,574 crore for a 9.99 per cent stake in India’s oil-retail-telecom conglomerate-led Jio Platforms — the largest investment for a minority stake by a technology company anywhere in the world and the largest FDI in the Indian tech sector.
Mukesh Ambani said that in the very near future, JioMart and Whatsapp will empower nearly 3 crore small Indian Kirana shops to digitally transact with every customer in their neighbourhood.