US’ Silver Lake Acquires 1.75% Stake in Reliance’s Retail Arm

File image of Mukesh Ambani, Chairman of Reliance Industries Ltd.

(Photo: The Quint)

US Private equity firm Silver Lake Partners is slated to invest Rs 7,500 crore for a stake of 1.75 percent in the retail arm of Reliance Industries, reported PTI, citing a Reliance Industries statement.

“Reliance Industries Limited and Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd (RRVL) announced today that Silver Lake will invest Rs 7,500 crore into RRVL, a subsidiary of Reliance Industries.”   

This is reportedly the second billion-dollar investment by Silver Lake in a Reliance Industries arm. Previously, the US company had invested USD 1.35 billion in Jio Platforms.

According to PTI, Silver Lake is the global leader in large-scale technology investing, with investments in Airbnb, Alibaba, Alphabet’s Verily and Waymo units, Dell Technologies and Twitter, among others.

Reliance may be looking to sell about 10 percent of Reliance Retail, as well, reported PTI. This comes a month after Reliance procured the retail and logistics business of Future Group for Rs 24,713.

Silver Lakes was also, according to PTI, the first US private equity firm to invest in Jio after Facebook took a 9.99 percent stake in the company.

‘Delighted to Extend Our Relationship’: Mukesh Ambani

According to NDTV, chairman and managing director of Facebook, Mukesh Ambani said:

“I am delighted to extend our relationship with Silver Lake to our transformational efforts of building an inclusive partnership with millions of small merchants while providing value to Indian consumers across the country in the Indian retail sector.”   

Further Ambani said that they believe “technology will be key to bringing the much-needed transformation in this sector so that various constituents of the retail ecosystem can collaborate to build inclusive growth platforms.”

(With inputs from PTI and NDTV.)