Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala latest to acquire a sliver of Jio Platforms for $1.2 bn

Abu Dhabi based sovereign firm Mubadala Investment Company has invested around $1.2 billion (about Rs 9063.60 crore) in Reliance Industries’ telecom arm Jio Platforms.

With the investment, Mubadala has become the sixth firm to have bought a stake in the company in the past six weeks.   

Mubadala now holds a 1.85% equity stake in Jio Platforms on a fully diluted basis, a statement said. The latest deal values Jio’s equity at Rs 4.91 lakh crore while enterprise value is pegged at Rs 5.16 lakh crore. 

Since the Facebook deal in April, Jio Platforms has raised around $11.62 billion (Rs 87,655.35 crore) from private equity firms Silver Lake, Vista Equity Partners, General Atlantic, KKR and now Mubadala.

“We look forward to benefiting from Mubadala’s experience and insights from supporting growth journeys across the world,” Mukesh Ambani, CMD of Reliance Industries said.

Owned by the Abu Dhabi government, Mubadala’s portfolio is worth $229 billion, with investments in various sectors including aerospace, semiconductors, metals and mining, renewable energy, oil and gas, petrochemicals, utilities, healthcare, real estate, pharmaceuticals and medical technology and agribusiness. 

In 2017, it set up a venture capital arm which manages funds in the US, Europe and the Middle East. Mubadala has offices in Rio de Janeiro, Moscow, New York and San Francisco and a joint venture in Hong Kong.    

"We have seen how Jio has already transformed communications and connectivity in India, and as an investor and partner, we are committed to supporting India's digital growth journey,” Khaldoon Al Mubarak, MD and Group CEO of Mubadala Investment Company said.

Jio has 338 million subscribers and a portfolio of digital companies. The capital infusion is expected to help RIL pare its debt. As of March 31, the company has a gross debt of Rs 3.4 lakh.

The Jio stake sale has sparked talks of similar investments by other global technology companies in the telecom sector.

Jio’s closest competitor Bharti Airtel, in a separate exchange filing today, refuted media reports stating that Jeff Bezos’s ecommerce giant Amazon was looking to strike a $2 billion deal. 

Last week, several media reports said that Alphabet-owned search engine Google was in talks to acquire a stake in financially stressed Vodafone Idea. The telecom firm had also denied the development. “The company constantly evaluates various opportunities for enhancing the stakeholders’ value...Currently, there is no proposal as reported by the media that is being considered at the board,” Vodafone Idea had said.