Silver Lake, the U.S. private equity firm, announced on Friday that it’s going to buy a $600M stake in Reliance Jio Platforms.
Previously, Silver Lake invested around $750 million in Reliance Jio Platforms. The firm stated that this fusion is going to increase its stake in the company to 2.08% from 1.5%.
This new investment is the seventh deal of Reliance Hip Platforms. This week, an Abu-Dhabi based sovereign firm Mubadala, announced that it would invest around $1.2 billion in Jio, a firm of India’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani. Vista, KKR, Facebook, and General Atlantic have also written checks to Jio Platforms.
This announcement has influenced the appeal of Jio Platforms. It has over 388 million subscribers in just four years, to the foreign investors who are looking to invest in the largest internet market.
Some recent media reports have claimed that Amazon is planning to buy $2 billion stakes in Bharti Airtel, which is India’s largest telecom operator. Moreover, Google is in talks for a deal with Vodafone Idea, which is the second-largest telecom operator in India.
Egon Durban, a managing partner at Silver Lake, stated that “this recent investment in Reliance Jio Platforms has shown our admiration for Mukesh Ambani and his team. They have a great vision of building the most remarkable technology company.”
“We are happy to bring more investors to this opportunity. We also want to help Jio Platforms to carry out its mission,” he stated.
Silver Lake has around $40 billion in assets and capital. Moreover, it has invested in several tech firms throughout the years, including Unity and Skype. Moreover, it has invested in the consultancy firm Gartner, computer giant Dell, Alibaba’s Ant Financial, Chinese ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing.
Albania is raising capital to minimize his oil-to-retail Reliance Industries debt to zero by 2021. He made this promise to all shareholders earlier this year. The company was in debt back in 2012 but took loans to create the Hip Platforms.
“The investment of Silver Lake in Jio Platforms, during the chaotic COVID-19 pandemic, is an endorsement of India’s improving economy. Slowly, it will grow bigger and better,” said Ambani in a statement.
Silverlake believes that its partnership with Reliance Jio is going to be long term. Mukesh Ambani has also welcomed this investment with open arms. Let’s wait and see how successful this investment from Silverlake turns out to be.
