New Delhi: Days after selling a stake in its digital arm to Facebook for USD 5.7 billion, Reliance Industries on Thursday said it is in talks with other strategic and financial investors for a similar-sized deal that will help cut debt at the unit that houses India's youngest but biggest mobile operator.
Without revealing the identity of the companies, RIL in its fourth-quarter earnings statement said the investment would be announced in the coming months.
"In addition to the FB investment, the board was informed that RIL has received strong interest from other strategic and financial investors and is in good shape to announce a similar-sized investment in the coming months," it said.
Ahead of last week's announcement of Facebook buying a 9.99 per cent stake in Jio Platforms Ltd, there were unconfirmed reports of the company being in parallel discussions with Google.
The potential interest, the company said, establishes "the attractiveness of Jio Platforms to the world and is a strong validation of RIL's capability to conceive large-scale disruptive greenfield businesses".
"With strong visibility to these equity infusions, the board was informed that RIL is set to achieve net-zero debt status ahead of its own aggressive timeline," the statement said.
Read more: Reliance Industries' Q4 net drops 39% at Rs 6,348 crore
Billionaire Mukesh Ambani is looking to replicate the success of WeChat and Alipay in China as multipurpose superapps platforms with integrated chat functions, payment and financial services and online shopping to take on Amazon and Walmart's Flipkart in an e-commerce market that KPMG says is likely to grow to USD 200 billion by 2027.
The tie-up brings together WhatsApp, India's most popular app with about 400 million users, and Jio's mobile services with 388 million subscribers.
WhatsApp would be integrating a 'Jio Shopping bot' on the API (application programming interface), and allow users to add the bot to their contacts. Once added, users can search for a local business, see available products in a catalogue, and purchase the product in the thread or in the shop.
Earlier this week, JioMart, an e-commerce venture of Reliance Retail, opened a business account on Facebook's WhatsApp. It connects WhatsApp users to JioMart through automated text messaging and complete order delivery through local grocery or Kirana stores.
Although the service is only available in three cities, the experiment offers an example of how the WhatsApp-JioMart combination will function as a multipurpose mobile service connecting hundreds of millions of consumers with local Kirana stores.
Reliance to hive off $75 bn O2C business into separate unit for sale to Aramco
Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), India's largest company, on Thursday said its board has approved hiving off its USD 75 billion worth oil-to-chemicals business into a separate division to enable the sale of 20 per cent stake in the unit to Saudi national oil company Aramco.
The hiving off will be subject to the approval of the National Company Law Tribunal.
After the approval, the oil-to-chemical (O2C) business will become a separate vertical with independent balance sheet just like the conglomerate's digital arm, Jio Platforms. RIL had organised all its digital businesses including Reliance Jio that has 388 million telecom subscribers, into Jio Platforms. It last week agreed to sell a 9.99 per cent stake in Jio Platforms to Facebook Inc for USD 5.7 billion.
RIL Board "approved a Scheme of Arrangement for transfer of O2C Undertaking of the company to Reliance O2C Ltd as a going concern on slump sale basis for a lump sum consideration equal to the income tax net worth of the O2C Undertaking as on the appointed date of the Scheme," it said in its fourth-quarter earnings statement.
(PTI Report)
