Reliance Industries seems to be on a stake selling spree, less than two weeks since the stake sale to Facebook, RIL has announced another minority stake sale of 1.15% to US-based private equity firm Silver lake at Rs 5655.75 crore. This pegs the equity value of Jio Platforms (Subsidiary of Reliance Industries comprising Jio 4G network and Jio apps ecosystem) at Rs 4.9 lakh crore which is a 12.5% premium to the equity valuation over the Facebook deal last month.
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 mission is to build and grow great companies by partnering with world-class management teams. Its investments have included Airbnb, Alibaba, Ant Financial, Alphabet’s Verily and Waymo units, Dell Technologies, Twitter, and numerous other global technology leaders.
“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. They have brought extraordinary engineering capabilities to bear on bringing the power of low-cost digital services to a mass consumer and small business population. 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.”
Commenting on the investment, Mr. Egon Durban, Silver Lake Co-CEO and Managing Partner said
This investment by Silver Lake will help augment the 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. Morgan Stanley acted as financial advisor to Reliance Industries and AZB & Partners and Davis Polk & Wardwell acted as legal counsels.
