Reliance Jio gets 5th deal, KKR invests Rs 11,367 crore for 2.32% stake

NEW DELHI: Reliance Industries said KKR will invest $1.5 billion in Jio Platforms, marking the fifth fundraising deal in a month by its digital unit and bringing the total amount of new investment to $10 billion.

Other recent investors in Jio Platforms, which houses movie, music apps and telecoms venture Jio Infocomm, include Facebook Inc, General Atlantic, Silverlake and Vista Equity Partners.

The purchase of the 2.32% stake in Jio Platforms for Rs 11,367 billion is KKR’s biggest investment in Asia, Mumbai-headquartered Reliance said in a statement.

The deal pegs Jio Platform’s equity value at 4.91 trillion rupees and its enterprise value at 5.16 trillion rupees, the same valuation at which General Atlantic bought a stake in the unit just days earlier.

The deals will help the oil-to-telecoms giant meet its target of eliminating $21.4 billion in net debt this year. It also plans to sell $7 billion in new shares.

KKR, founded in 1976, has invested more than $30 billion in tech companies, including China’s ByteDance and Indonesian digital payments firm GoJek.