Billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries said Thursday that it completed the sale of about 10 percent of its stake in its retail unit to a group of foreign investors for 47,265 crore.
Since September 25, the company has sold 10.09% of its stake in Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd (RRVL) to private equity firms Silver Lake Partners, KKR, GIC, TPG and General Atlantic, as well as funds sovereigns Mubadala, ADIA and PIF.
“RRVL has received a cumulative subscription amount of Rs 47,265 crore from the following financial partners and allocated them 69.27 crore of equity shares,” the company said in a statement.
Silver Lake Partners bought a 2 percent stake in two tranches for Rs 9,375 crore, while KKR invested Rs 5,550 crore for 1.19 percent interest.
GIC and the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (AIDA) each bought 1.18 percent for Rs 5,512.50 crore. Mubadala of the United Arab Emirates bought a 1.33 percent stake for 6,247.50 crore.
The Public Investment Fund, the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia, bought a 2.04 percent stake for Rs 9,555 crore.
In addition, General Atlantic invested Rs 3,675 crore for a 0.78 percent stake and TPG invested Rs 1,837.50 crore for a 0.39 percent interest.
Reliance Retail Ltd, a subsidiary of RRVL, operates the largest and fastest growing retail business in India, serving nearly 640 million visitors in its 12,000 stores across the country. His business includes supermarkets, consumer electronics chain stores, cash and carry wholesaling, fast fashion stores, and the online grocery store JioMart.
The investments equip Reliance Retail with funds to compete in both offline and online formats, as well as ammunition for battle against rivals such as Walmart-owned e-commerce company Flipkart and Amazon.
The new financing came weeks after Reliance acquired Future Group’s retail, wholesale, logistics and warehouse business for an enterprise value of Rs 24,173 crore to consolidate its dominant position in the offline retail market.
However, the deal is being challenged by American e-commerce giant Amazon, which had taken a stake in the unlisted entity Future.
Previously, Reliance raised an unprecedented crore of Rs 1.52 lakh crore for Jio Platforms, the group’s telecommunications and digital services company, from investors such as Facebook, Intel and Google.
The oil, telecommunications and retail conglomerate intends to ditch the minority stakes in its digital and retail businesses, and hold an initial public offering for each within five years.
Reliance Retail in May of this year launched JioMart, an e-commerce company, to connect family-owned stores, called Kirana, with consumers.
Isha Mukesh Ambani, director of RRVL, said the company looks forward to working with its partners after the “phenomenal interest” shown by them.
“With our focus on new commerce, we are committed to playing a transformative role in the Indian retail sector by empowering millions of merchants and micro, small and medium enterprises,” he said.
Isha is the daughter of the richest Indian, Mukesh Ambani.
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