RIL Pares 13.4% Stake In Jio Platforms, Raises $8 Billion In 3 Deals In 3 Weeks

Mumbai: Extending its Thursday’s 3 per cent gains on Friday, shares of Reliance Industries (RIL) opened 3 per cent higher at Rs 1,550 on the NSE on Friday, after the company announced that US-based private equity firm Vista Equity will invest Rs 11,367 crore into Jio Platforms, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the company.RIL stock ended Rs 52.30 (3.48 per cent) higher at Rs 1559.45 compared to previous close of Rs 1506.95 at NSE on Friday. Around 3.85 crore shares changed hands at NSE on Friday.

Vista’s investment will translate into a 2.32 per cent equity stake in Jio Platforms on a fully diluted basis, making Vista the largest investor in Jio Platforms, only behind RIL and Facebook. Jio Platforms have now raised Rs 60,596 crore (close to $8 Billion) from leading technology investors in less than three weeks time. RIL has pared its stake in Jio Platforms by 13.40 per cent in that process.

Deepak Jasani, Head Retail Research, HDFC Securities said, “With this, Reliance Jio Platforms has succeeded in bringing in marquee global investors into India buoying the private equity play even in tough times. This will also reinforce the move towards RIL becoming a zero net debt company soon”.

This is a third major equity deal for Jio Platforms in three weeks — it previously sold a 9.9 per cent stake to Facebook for Rs 43,534 crore, and then 1.5 per cent to Silver Lake for Rs 5,655 crore.

Vista is a global investment firm focused on empowering and growing enterprise software, data and technology-enabled companies. It has more than $57 billion in cumulative capital commitments and its global network of companies collectively represents the fifth-largest enterprise software company in the world.

In the past one month, RIL has rallied 30 per cent, as compared to a 6.7 per cent rise in the S&P BSE Sensex. With two successive days’ rally, RIL has recovered 77 per cent from its 52-week low of Rs 876 touched on March 23, in an intra-day deal. It is 4 per cent away from its all-time high level of Rs 1,618 touched on December 20, 2019.