Billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries is making huge investors like Carlyle Group Inc, SoftBank Group Corp among others wait after it witnessed demand from other investors, stated a Bloomberg report. But just last week, some reports suggested that Reliance Industries' retail arm is trying to sell 40 per cent stake to Amazon.
It is believed that Ambani is offering that for USD 20 billion to the US-based technology giant. Carlyle and SoftBank have recently expressed interest in investing in Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd (RRVL), but it has requested them to wait.
After the Jio stake attracted huge investors, the retail arm of Reliance Industries is getting investor attention. The digital arm of Reliance attracted investments from over 10 investors. Now, it is stated that some of these investors like Mubadala Investment Co.and Abu Dhabi Investment Authority are also looking at stake in the retail business. Silver Lake Partners was the first one to pick a stake in RRVL and Facebook was the first one to pick a stake in Jio.
It is believed that Reliance Industries is looking for more than a financial partner. It is looking at strategic partnerships which is why Amazon looks like the perfect one. In the past, some reports suggested that Amazon was looking at picking a stake in Kishore Biyani-led Future Group. But now that RIL is acquiring businesses of Future Group, Amazon will have to look at RIL to expand on India.
Last year, Amazon had acquired a 49 per cent stake in Future Coupons, which holds about 7.3 per cent in Future Retail through convertible warrants, the company that holds Biyani’s BigBazaar retail chain.
