Reliance Industries (RIL) announced that global investment firm Silver Lake will invest Rs 5,655.75 crore or $746.7 million into Jio Platforms.
Silver Lake’s investment gives it slightly more than a 1 percent stake in Jio Platforms.
This investment values Jio Platforms at an equity value of Rs 4.90 lakh crore and an enterprise value of Rs 5.15 lakh crore and represents a 12.5 percent premium to the equity valuation of the Facebook investment announced on April 22, 2020.
Social media network Facebook earlier picked up 9.99 percent stake in Jio Platforms for Rs 43,574 crore. Reliance Jio has 388 million mobile phone customers on its all-India 4G network. Facebook aims to boost revenue to WhatsApp business by acquiring stake in Jio.
Silver Lake’s investments have included Airbnb, Alibaba, Ant Financial, Alphabet’s Verily and Waymo units, Dell Technologies, Twitter and numerous other global technology leaders.
Reliance last week reported a 39 percent decrease in March quarter profit, hit by a sharp fall in oil prices and lower fuel demand, and said at the time it that had received investor interest for a Facebook-like deal.
The $746.7 million deal with Silver Lake values Jio Platforms – the digital services entity that houses Reliance’s telecoms arm Jio Infocomm, its music and video streaming apps, at about $65 billion, Reliance said in a regulatory filing.
Silver Lake’s investment highlights Reliance’s ability to monetise its digital services business and adds to the company’s strong financial flexibility, Moody’s Investors Service said in a note.
Morgan Stanley acted as financial advisor to Reliance Industries and AZB & Partners and Davis Polk & Wardwell acted as legal counsels.
