KKR to invest US$1.5b in Jio Platforms

[NEW DELHI] India's Reliance Industries said KKR will invest US$1.50 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 US$10 billion.

Other recent investors in Jio Platforms, which houses movie, music apps and telecoms venture Jio Infocomm, include Facebook, General Atlantic, Silverlake and Vista Equity Partners.

The purchase of the 2.32 per cent stake in Jio Platforms for 113.67 billion rupees (S$2.14 billion) 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 US$21.4 billion in net debt this year. It also plans to sell US$7 billion in new shares.

KKR, founded in 1976, has invested more than US$30 billion in tech companies, including China's ByteDance and Indonesian digital payments firm GoJek.

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REUTERS