Jio Platforms gets Rs 5,655 crore investment from PE giant Silver Lake

Private equity firm Silver Lake plans to invest Rs 5,655.75 crore (US$ 802.35 million) into Jio Platforms for 1.15 per cent stake. This investment values Jio Platforms at an equity value of Rs 4.90 lakh crore (US$ 69.51 billion) and an enterprise value of Rs 5.15 lakh crore (US$ 73.06 billion).

Earlier, a Rs 43,574 crore (US$ 6.18 billion) deal with Facebook was made by Reliance Industries This Silver Lake deal signifies a 12.5 per cent premium to the equity valuation of the Facebook investment into Jio Platforms, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL).

Other investment made by the firm includes Airbnb, Alibaba, Ant Financial, Alphabet’s Verily and Waymo units, Dell Technologies, Twitter and numerous other global technology leaders.

In order to cut down debt, Reliance was in talks with other strategic and financial investors for a similar-sized deal, after selling a 10 per cent stake to Facebook.

RIL chairman and managing director Mr Mukesh Ambani said, "Silver Lake is one of the most respected voices in technology and finance. We are excited to leverage insights from their global technology relationships for the Indian Digital Society’s transformation".

While Silver Lake co-CEO and managing partner, Mr Egon Durban said that Jio Platforms is one of the world’s most significant companies, led by an incredibly strong and entrepreneurial management team who are driving and actualizing a courageous vision. "They have brought extraordinary engineering capabilities to bear on bringing the power of low-cost digital services to a mass consumer and small businesses population. The market potential they are addressing is enormous," he said.

This deal is subject to regulatory and other customary approvals.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.