Silver Lake to invest Rs 7,500 crore in Reliance Retail

BENGALURU: American private equity firm Silver Lake will put in a little more than $1 billion (Rs 7,500 crore) into Reliance Retail Ventures for a 1.75% stake which values the retailer at about $57 billion on a pre-money equity value basis, the retailer and its parent Reliance Industries said.
Reliance Retail serves close to 640 million footfalls across its 12,000 stores nationwide and is the country’s largest retailer. It has increased the gap between itself and competitors through the recent acquisition of Future Group.
The investment by Silver Lake is the second one by the PE firm in Reliance after putting in $1.3 billion in Jio Platforms earlier this year.
“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,” said Reliance chairman and managing director Mukesh Ambani.
Ambani had said at Reliance’s AGM a few months back that the company was in talks with foreign investors for a possible stake sale in his retail venture which sells everything from electronic devices to groceries.
“The success of JioMart in such a short time span, especially while India, along with the rest of the world, battles the COVID-19 pandemic, is truly unprecedented, and the most exciting growth phase has just begun. Reliance’s New Commerce strategy could become the disruptor of this decade,” Egon Durban, co-CEO and managing partner of Silver Lake, said in a statement.