US-Based Silver Lake To Invest Rs 5,656 Crore In Jio Platforms: Reliance Industries

Reliance Industries said on Monday that private equity firm Silver Lake will invest Rs 5,656 crore ($746.74 million) in its digital arm, giving it a valuation of Rs 4.90 lakh crore. The transaction is subject to regulatory and other customary approvals. The deal comes days after Facebook announced an investment of Rs 43,574 crore to buy a 9.99 per cent stake in Jio Platforms - the digital services entity that houses Reliance's telecoms arm Jio Infocomm, as well as its news, movie and music apps, along with other businesses.

“I am delighted to welcome Silver Lake as a valued partner in continuing to grow and transform the Indian digital ecosystem for the benefit of all Indians. Silver Lake has an outstanding record of being a valuable partner for leading technology companies globally," Reliance Industries chairman and managing director Mukesh Ambani said.

"We are excited to leverage insights from their global technology relationships for the Indian Digital Society's transformation,” he added.

Silver Lake co-CEO and managing partner Egon Durban said, “Jio Platforms is one of the world's most remarkable companies, led by an incredibly strong and entrepreneurial management team who are driving and actualizing a courageous vision.”

"The market potential they are addressing is enormous, and we are honored and pleased to have been invited to partner with Mukesh Ambani and the team at Reliance and Jio to help further the Jio mission," Mr Durban said.

Jio Platforms is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Reliance Industries and Reliance Jio Infocomm
Limited, which provides connectivity platform to more than 388 million subscribers, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Jio Platforms.

Silver Lake is the global leader in large-scale technology investing,  having invested in the likes of Airbnb, Alibaba, Ant Financial, Alphabet's Verily and Waymo units, Dell Technologies, Twitter and numerous other global technology leaders.

RIL occupies the numero uno position in the ranking of top-10 firms by market capitalisation.

The shares of Reliance Industries soared 2.8 per cent to Rs 1,467 on the previous trading session i.e. Thursday, ahead of its Q4 results.