Silver Lake infuses additional Rs 4,547 Cr in Jio

Mukesh Ambani led Indian telecom giant Reliance Jio is on funding spree, and just closed seventh deals in a row from overseas entities in less than six weeks. On Thursday, Abu Dhabi sovereign fund Mubadala Investment Company invested Rs 9093.6 crore in Jio for 1.85% stake.

Hours after this, Jio’s existing backer Silver Lake and its co-investors have also announced to pump in an additional amount of Rs 4,546.80 crore for 0.93% stake in the Mumbai-based company.

The latest deal would value Jio platforms at an equity value of Rs 4.91 lakh crore and an enterprise value of Rs 5.16 lakh crore. Silver Lake’s additional investment will translate into a 2.08% equity stake in Jio on a fully diluted basis. 

This is the second tranche received by Reliance industries’ digital unit from Silver Lake in the last one month making its total bet in Jio to Rs 10,202.55 crore. The American private equity firm had bought a 1.15% stake in Jio for about $750 million (Rs 5,655.75 crore) on May 4.

After closing its seventh deal in less than two months, Jio secured a total investment of Rs 92,202.15 crore from the likes of 6 large global companies in back to back deals by diluting a 19.9% total stake.

These sequential series of deals were led by Facebook, which acquired a 9.9% stake in Jio for Rs 43,574 crore~ $5.7 billion in April followed by Vista Equity, General Atlantic, KKR, Silver Lake, and Mubadala adding to the piles of money raised by Jio. 

Apart from Jio, two other leading telecom giants - Vodafone Idea and Airtel - were reportedly in talks with Google and Amazon respectively. As per media reports, Amazon was eyeing a 5% stake in Airtel, whereas Google was also looking for a 5% stake in Vodafone Idea. However, Vodafone and Airtel have denied such talks.