Both
Reliance Industries (RIL) and
Just Dial have neither denied nor accepted a potential acquisition deal where the former is claimed by reports to buy the Indian Internet technology company for Rs6,600cr. Both the companies have said that they are unable to comment on media speculations.
Stock exchanges had sought clarification from RIL and Just Dial over an article in TimesNow titled, "Reliance in advanced talks to buy Justdial for Rs 6,600 crore to accelerate local commerce, payments play.”
The article said that if the Justdial deal goes through, it will aid Reliance Retail leverage the merchant database of the 25-year-old local discovery platform and listings company as well as its network across India, to further push its own local commerce and payments play in a highly competitive market, people familiar with the matter told ET.
The acquisition deal is reported to be worth between Rs5,920cr-6,660cr ($800-900 million).
RIL clarified exchanges saying, "would like to clarify that we are unable to comment on media speculation and rumours and it would be inappropriate on our part to do so."
Similar clarification was also made by Just Dial. The company said to exchanges that "we do not comment on media speculation and as and when any proposals are considered by the Board that warrant disclosures, the Company complies with the disclosure obligations under the SEBI (Listing Obligations and Disclosure Requirements) Regulations, 2015 (“SEBI Listing Regulations”)."
At around 2.01 pm, RIL was trading at Rs2100.60 per piece up by 0.8% on Sensex. Just Dial was trading at Rs1087.90 per piece down by 1.7% on the same index.