Adia to invest $598m in India’s Reliance Retail

REUTERS/Niharika Kulkarni

Reliance Retail Ventures, a subsidiary of India’s Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), is planning to raise 49.67 billion rupees ($598 million) from the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (Adia).

The investment by a wholly owned subsidiary of the UAE’s sovereign wealth fund will translate into an equity stake of 0.59 percent in Reliance Retail, which makes it among the top four companies by equity value in India.

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The transaction is subject to customary approvals.

Reliance Retail has drawn investments from the US-based private equity firm KKR & Co and Qatar Investment Authority.

The latest investment comes as Reliance set an internal target to raise $3.5 billion.

Adia and Singapore’s GIC invested $664 million each into the retail unit in 2020 as Reliance sold a 10.09 percent stake at a valuation of 4.68 trillion rupees. Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund pumped in $1.15 billion.

Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani said that “several marquee global strategic and financial investors have shown strong interest” in his company in August.

Morgan Stanley acted as financial adviser to Reliance Retail.

Reliance Retail has more than 18,000 stores, with operations ranging from groceries to electronics. It includes foreign partnerships with brands such as Marks and Spencer and competes with Amazon and Walmart’s Flipkart in one of the world’s biggest markets.