Mukesh Ambani has added yet another multimillion dollar investment to his name, and raised more than $750 million from Abu Dhabi Investment Authority in exchange of a 1.2% stake in the retail arm of his company-Reliance Retail. This makes the 7th Reliance Retail investment in the past month, over which the company has raised more than $5 billion by selling about 8.5% equity stake in the company’s biggest retail player.
The round, which values the company at $58.5 billion, has seen participation from companies like General Atlantic, KKR, Silver Lake, and many more. All of these investors (apart from GIC) are from the Jio Platform’s portfolio, and had participated in the $20+ billion round for the technology platform that was completed earlier this year. In fact, GIC is the only non Jio Platforms partner to participate in the Reliance Retail funding round.
Moreover, this is not the first multi million dollar investment from the country. Last month, Abu Dhabi-based sovereign investor Mubadala acquired a 1.4% stake in the company in exchange for $857 million.
Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director of Reliance Industries, said, “We are
delighted with ADIA’s current investment and continued support and hope to benefit from its strong track record of over four decades of value creation globally. The investment by ADIA is a further endorsement of Reliance Retail’s performance and potential and the inclusive and transformational New Commerce business model that it is rolling out.”
Reliance is looking to raise huge amounts of capital and become the biggest player in India’s retail market, an initiative that was set into motion when the company acquired a majority stake in the country’s second largest retail player- Future Group. Now, with exorbitant amounts of money, Mukesh Ambani will seek to better his already well established position in the market, and will try to add a digital touch to the endeavour. This move will also help the company to expand JioMart, Reliance’s e-commerce platform, that looks to compete with the likes of Amazon and Flipkart.
