KKR agrees to buy $754m stake in Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Retail retail business

The US private equity group will hold a 1.28% stake in the Indian company

KKR has agreed to buy a $754 million stake in Mukesh Ambani’s retail business. Reuters

KKR will buy a $754 million (Dh2.76 billion) stake in Mukesh Ambani’s retail business as the Indian billionaire extends his fundraising spree that netted more than $20bn for his technology venture this year.

The US private equity group will hold a 1.28 per cent stake in Reliance Retail Ventures, valuing India’s biggest retailer at 4.2 trillion rupees ($57bn/Dh209.2bn), the Mumbai-based group said in a statement on Wednesday. The deal follows Silver Lake Partners’ $1bn investment earlier this month in the retail unit controlled by Mr Ambani’s refining-to-telecom conglomerate, Reliance Industries.

Mr Ambani, 63, has turned his attention to the retail business in a bet on India’s billion-plus consumers as smartphones and the internet transform the way they shop and access services from education to health care. In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, Jio Platforms, Reliance’s digital unit, sold a combined 33 per cent stake to investors including Facebook, Google and Intel this year.

Like Silver Lake, KKR is a repeat investor in Reliance’s consumer sector companies as Ambani seeks to pivot away from the energy businesses he inherited from his father, who died in 2002.

While Silver Lake paid $1.35bn for a stake in Jio Platforms, KKR invested $1.5bn in Reliance’s telecommunications and digital services arm.

A source earlier this month said that Reliance has offered a $20bn stake in its retail unit to Amazon. If successful, this would be the biggest ever deal for the American retailer as well as India.

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

Mr Ambani’s success in luring investors to Jio Platforms and now his retail business has boosted his personal wealth. As shares of Reliance Industries rallied 47 per cent this year, he has added about $26bn to his net worth. With a fortune of $84.7bn, he is now the world’s fifth-richest person, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.