Reliance Industries Spurts 4% On Urban Ladder Acquisition

Reliance Industries shares soared more than 4 per cent in early trading on the news that, on Saturday, Reliance Industries' retail arm Reliance Retail Ventures bought a 96 per cent stake in online furniture retailer Urban Ladder, thereby expanding its presence in India's fast-growing e-commerce market. The shares of Reliance Industries soared 4.1 per cent to touch an intra-day high of Rs 2,084 at opening bell. At 9:59 am, the shares were trading at Rs 2024.50, up 1.1 per cent on the BSE.

Reliance Retail has bought the 96 per cent majority stake in the eight-year old e-furniture marketplace Urban Ladder for Rs 182 crore or $24.4 million.

Reliance stated that it intends to invest a further Rs 750 million by December 2023, which will take the shareholding in the company to 100 per cent.

Urban Ladder operates a chain of retail stores in the national capital region (NCR), Mumbai, Pune, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Chennai.

Recently, Reliance Industries said that it will invest up to $50 million or Rs 371 crore in Breakthrough Energy Ventures, a climate change company owned by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, over the next eight to 10 years.

The BSE Sensex was at 43985.45, higher by 345.15 points and the NSE Nifty was at 12872.85, up 91.20 points or 0.71 per cent at the time.