After Facebook deal, Reliance Jio rakes in $747 million from PE giant Silver Lake
Jio Platforms, the technology arm of India’s most valued company, Reliance Industries (RIL), has raised Rs 5,655.75 crore ($747 million) from US private equity giant Silver Lake.
Jio Platforms is the umbrella entity of all the digital and internet businesses of RIL, including mobile apps, broadband connectivity, smart devices, cloud computing, big data analytics, artificial intelligence, internet of things, augmented and mixed reality, and blockchain.
Elaborating the relevance of the Silver Lake deal, RIL said the investment holds a “special significance” as it comes at a time when the world economy, including India’s, has been severely impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic.
SILVER LAKE
Silver Lake is an American private equity firm focused on leveraged buyout and growth capital investments in technology, technology-enabled and related industries. Founded in 1999, the firm is one of the largest technology investors in the world and notable for participating in club deals.
Silver Lake is known for its wide-scale technology investments, including in firms such as Airbnb, Alibaba, Ant Financial, Alphabet’s Verily and Waymo units, Dell Technologies, and Twitter. It has over $43 billion in combined assets under management and committed capital and a team of approximately 100 investment and operating professionals located around the world including in Silicon Valley, New York, London, and Hong Kong.
“The market potential they (Jio Platforms) are addressing is enormous, and we are honoured and pleased to have been invited to partner with Ambani and the team at Reliance and Jio to help further the Jio mission,” said Egon Durban, Silver Lake co-CEO and managing partner.
Debt Repayment Plans
RIL hopes to close fund raising of Rs 1.03 lakh crore by June-end, including a rights share issue it announced last week.
Rights Issue: Rs 53,125 crore
Facebook – Jio Platforms deal: Rs 43,574 crore
Fuel retail joint venture with BP: Rs 7,000 crore
Future asset divestments include
a 20 percent stake sale in newly formed wholly-owned subsidiary Reliance O2C Ltd to Saudi Aramco for $15 billion enterprise value, additional stake sale in Jio Platforms for close to $6 billion,
conclusion of the telecom tower assets sale to Brookfield,
and, RIL is in advanced talks to sell its telecom fibre assets.