In a major investment, Silver Lake is set to infuse Rs 7,500 crore in Reliance Retail for 1.75 per cent stake in the company, which is a subsidiary of Reliance Industries. This is the second billion-dollar investment by Silver Lake in a Reliance Industries
subsidiary after the $1.35 billion it invested in Jio Platforms earlier this year.
With more than $60 billion in combined assets under management and committed capital, Silver Lake is the global leader in large-scale technology investing. It has previously invested in Airbnb, Alibaba, Alphabet’s Verily and Waymo units among others.
The investment in Reliance Retail comes a day after it led a $500 million funding round for Byju’s that valued the Indian online education platform at around $10.8 billion.
“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. We believe technology will be key to bringing the much-needed transformation in this sector so that various constituents of the retail ecosystem can collaborate to build inclusive growth platforms. Silver Lake will be an invaluable partner in implementing our vision for Indian Retail,” Mukesh Ambani said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Egon Durban, Co-CEO and Managing Partner of Silver Lake, said, "Reliance’s New Commerce strategy could become the disruptor of this decade. We are thrilled to have been invited to partner with Reliance in their mission for Indian Retail.”
RRVL reported a consolidated turnover of Rs 162,936 crore and a net profit of Rs 5,448 crore for the year ended March 31, 2020.
RIL has started preliminary talks with Facebook and private equity fund KKR, the two entities that bought stake in RIL-run Jio Platforms, to make an investment in its retail business too. The two are among the 13 that have invested over $20 billion in Jio Platforms for over a 30 per cent stake.
It is believed these investors have informally been given an option to also put in money in Reliance Retail once the monetisation process of the company starts after the acquisition of the retail business of Kishore Biyani’s Future Group.