India’s Reliance to woo Amazon with $20bn retail stake
Indian digital giant Reliance is said to be considering offering Amazon a $20bn stake in its retail arm, as it tries to recruit more major tech brass to its roster of backers.
Reliance is willing to sell a stake of up to 40 per cent in its retail business to the e-commerce giant, a person familiar with the talks told Bloomberg.
The oil-to-telecoms conglomerate has already raised $20bn this year alone from investors including Facebook and Google across its various divisions.
Reliance’s owner is billionaire Mukesh Ambani, Asia’s richest man. He recently transformed the company into India’s largest telecoms network by customers, hoping to capitalise on the global shift towards digital products.
Amazon has not made a decision about whether to invest in Reliance but is interested in continuing the talks, the person told Bloomberg.
If successful, a $20bn deal would be the biggest ever single transaction in India, as well as for Amazon.
The news comes after Reliance Retail closed a $1bn funding injection yesterday from Silver Lake Partners, a major Silicon Valley investor in the likes of Twitter, Airbnb and Alibaba.
Shares in Reliance hit a record intraday high after the report, rising more than 8.5 per cent in Mumbai.
It also today became the first listed Indian firm to cross $200bn in market value.
Amazon declined to comment. Reliance could not be reached for comment.