Facebook adds Ambani to its friends list with 9.9% stake in Jio

Social media behemoth Facebook will invest Rs 43,574 crore into Jio Platforms, a unit of Reliance Industries, for a 9,99% equity stake. The investment will value Jio Platforms - a digital apps platform and a wholly owned subsidiary of Reliance Industries - at Rs 4.62 lakh crore. "Reliance Industries Limited (“Reliance Industries”), Jio Platforms Limited (“Jio Platforms”) and Facebook, Inc. (“Facebook”) today announced the signing of binding agreements for an investment of ? 43,574 crore by Facebook into Jio Platforms," said Mukesh Ambani-led RIL in a statement on Wednesday. "This investment by Facebook values Jio Platforms at ? 4.62 lakh crore pre-money enterprise value ($65.95 billion, assuming a conversion rate of ? 70 to a US Dollar). Facebook’s investment will translate into a 9.99% equity stake in Jio Platforms on a fully diluted basis," the oil to telecom business house added. The main focus of the deal is to come up with digital based solutions for 60 million micro, small and medium businesses, 120 million farmers, 30 million small merchants and millions of small and medium enterprises in the informal sector. Concurrent with the investment, Jio Platforms, Reliance Retail and WhatsApp have also entered into a commercial partnership agreement to further accelerate Reliance Retail’s New Commerce business on the JioMart platform using WhatsApp and to support small businesses on WhatsApp.The business house said that this was the largest investment for a minority stake by a technology company anywhere in the world and the largest FDI in the technology sector in India. Morgan Stanley as financial advisor and AZB & Partners and Davis Polk & Wardwell as counsels advised on the transaction. Reliance Jio - the telecom unit with 388 million subscribers - will continue to remain a wholly owned subsidiary of Reliance Platform. "The synergy between Jio and Facebook will help realise Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi’s Digital India Mission with its two ambitious goals — Ease of Living and Ease of Doing Business – for every single category of Indian people without exception. In the post-Corona era, I am confident of India’s economic recovery and resurgence in the shortest period of time. The partnership will surely make an important contribution to this transformation," Mukesh Ambani, chairman and MD of RIL, said in the statement.

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