Abu Dhabi's ADIA to invest US$750m in Mukesh Ambani's retail unit

[DUBAI] A unit of Abu Dhabi Investment Authority will invest US$750 million in Reliance Industries' retail arm, as billionaire Mukesh Ambani continues to enlist marquee backers for the business and adding to the US$4.4 billion he has mopped up in recent weeks.

ADIA will buy a 1.2 per cent stake in Reliance Retail Ventures, according to an exchange filing Tuesday, valuing the business at 4.29 trillion rupees. With the latest investment, RRVL has raised 377.1 billion rupees (S$6.9 billion) from global investors including Silver Lake, KKR, General Atlantic, Mubadala, GIC, TPG and ADIA in less than four weeks, the company said in the filing.

The deal brings yet another investor on board Ambani's retail unit which has already sold stakes to partners including KKR & Co General Atlantic and TPG among partners. The latest round builds on the success of the 63-year-old tycoon's technology venture, Jio Platforms, which raised more than US$20 billion from Facebook, Google and others earlier this year.

With the spree of investments, Asia's richest man is accelerating his efforts to transform his conglomerate into a retail and technology behemoth in a pivot away from its staple oil-refining business, one that he inherited after his father died in 2002.

The investor demand to buy into Ambani's retail unit has been so strong that the group had to put some investors on a waitlist, people familiar with the matter had said in September.

Reliance Retail runs supermarkets, India's largest consumer electronics chain, a cash-and-carry wholesaler, fast-fashion outlets and an online grocery store called JioMart. It reported 1.63 trillion rupees in revenue in the year through March 2020. The unit operates almost 12,000 stores in nearly 7,000 towns.

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