India's Reliance Industries (RIL) said US fund General Atlantic will invest $498.31 million (36.75 billion rupees) for a 0.84 percent stake in its retail arm. The investment gives Reliance Retail a pre money valuation of $58.17 billion.
This marks the second investment by General Atlantic in a subsidiary of Reliance Industries, following a Rs 6,598.38 crore investment in Jio Platforms announced earlier this year.
Reliance Retail Limited operates India's largest, fastest growing and most profitable retail business serving close to 640 million footfalls across its 12,000 stores nationwide.
RIL is India's largest private sector company, with a consolidated turnover of $87.1 billion. Reliance Retail topped the list of '50 fastest-growing retailers globally between FY2013-2018' in the Deloitte's Global Powers of Retailing 2020 index. RIL is also the top-most ranked company from India to feature in Fortune's Global 500 list with a current rank of 96.
General Atlantic, a leading global growth equity firm, has backed companies around the world, including Airbnb, Alibaba, Ant Financial, Box, ByteDance, Facebook, Slack, Snapchat, Uber and other global technology leaders.
Reliance Retail has said its vision is to galvanize the Indian retail sector through an inclusive strategy serving millions of customers by empowering millions of farmers and micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) and working closely with global and domestic companies as a preferred partner, to deliver immense benefits to Indian society, while protecting and generating employment for millions of Indians.
"I am pleased to extend our relationship with General Atlantic as we work towards empowering both merchants and consumers alike, and ultimately transforming Indian Retail," Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director of Reliance Industries, said.
General Atlantic's extensive expertise at the intersection of technology and consumer businesses, and two decades of experience investing in India, will help Reliance create a disruptive New Commerce platform to redefine retail in the country, Ambani added.
"General Atlantic is thrilled to be backing Mukesh's New Commerce mission to drive substantial positive change in the country's retail sector, which goes hand-in-hand with his vision to enable a Digital India through the work of Jio Platforms," said Bill Ford, Chief Executive Officer of General Atlantic.
The transaction is subject to regulatory and other customary approvals. Morgan Stanley acted as financial advisor to Reliance Retail and Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas and Davis Polk & Wardwell acted as legal counsels.
