KKR to invest $1.5 billion in Reliance Industries’ digital unit, biggest deal in Asia
By Administrator_India
India’s Reliance Industries said KKR will invest $1.5 billion in Jio Platforms, marking the fifth fundraising deal in a month by its digital unit and bringing the total amount of new investment to $10 billion.
Other recent investors in Jio Platforms, which houses movie, music apps and telecoms venture Jio Infocomm, include Facebook Inc , General Atlantic, Silverlake and Vista Equity Partners.
The purchase of the 2.32% stake in Jio Platforms for 113.67 billion rupees is KKR’s biggest investment in Asia, Mumbai-headquartered Reliance said in a statement.
The deal pegs Jio Platform’s equity value at 4.91 trillion rupees and its enterprise value at 5.16 trillion rupees, the same valuation at which General Atlantic bought a stake in the unit just days earlier.
The deals will help the oil-to-telecoms giant meet its target of eliminating $21.4 billion in net debt this year. It also plans to sell $7 billion in new shares.
KKR, founded in 1976, has invested more than $30 billion in tech companies, including China’s ByteDance and Indonesian digital payments firm GoJek.
($1 = 75.6230 Indian rupees)