Reliance debt free after Facebook, Saudi deals

Indian tycoon Mukesh Ambani said yesterday that his Reliance conglomerate is net debt free after raising more than $22 billion in a rights issue and selling stakes in its e-commerce unit to Facebook, Saudi Arabia’s wealth fund and others. Asia’s richest man after upending the Indian telecoms market, Ambani is attempting to do the same in e-commerce with Jio Platforms, taking on US giants Amazon and Walmart in the vast market of 1.3 billion consumers.

“I have fulfilled my promise to the shareholders by making Reliance net debt-free much before our original schedule of 31 March 2021,” the chairman of the oil-to-telecoms giant said in a statement. “I wish to assure them (shareholders) that Reliance in its Golden Decade will set even more ambitious growth goals, and achieve them,” he added.

Shares rise

Shares in Reliance Industries were up almost four per cent in Mumbai after the debt announcement.

In April, Mumbai-based Reliance raised $5.7 billion by selling a 9.99-per cent stake in Jio Platforms to Facebook, in one the biggest ever foreign investments in India.

Further deals quickly followed, including with Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and private equity firm KKR.

To further its e-commerce ambitions, Reliance is also closing in on a stake in units of Future Group, which already has a partnership with Amazon, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday.