General Atlantic to Invest Rs 3,675 Crore in Reliance Retail as RIL Seals Third Mega Deal This Month

American investment firm General Atlantic will invest Rs 3,675 crore in the retail unit of Reliance Industries Ltd, the Indian conglomerate said on Wednesday, bringing the total funding in Reliance Retail to over Rs 16,000 crore within a month.

General Atlantic will pick up a 0.84 per cent stake in exchange and the investment values Reliance Retail at a pre-money equity value of Rs 4.28 lakh crore, RIL said in an exchange filing on September 30.

Reliance Retail is receiving growing interest from overseas investors and has been raising funds at a sprinter’s pace in the past few weeks. India’s biggest brick-and-mortar retail business collected a combined Rs 13,050 crore in the past few weeks from private equity giant Silver Lake Partners and US buyout firm KKR & Co.

Last week, American buyout firm KKR decided to invest Rs 5,550 crore for 1.28 per cent stake in Reliance Retail. On September 9, Silver Lake Partners bought 1.75 per cent stake for Rs 7,500 crore in Reliance Retail.

The stake sale to General Atlantic marks the second investment by the equity firm in a subsidiary of Reliance Industries, following a Rs 6,598.38 crore investment in Jio Platforms announced earlier this year.

Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director, Reliance Industries, said, “I am pleased to extend our relationship with General Atlantic as we work towards empowering both merchants and consumers alike, and ultimately transforming Indian Retail.”

Bill Ford, Chief Executive Officer, General Atlantic, said, “General Atlantic is thrilled to be backing Mukesh’s New Commerce mission to drive substantial positive change in the country’s retail sector, which goes hand-in-hand with his vision to enable a Digital India through the work of Jio Platforms.”

RIL, an oil-to-telecom conglomerate, is expanding its retail business through acquisitions and lining up a scrum of global investors to take on rivals such as Amazon India and Walmart-owned Flipkart in India’s huge market. The company said in end August it would buy the retail and logistics businesses of Kishore Biyani’s Future Group in a deal valued at $3.38 billion, including debt.