Mukesh Ambai-led Reliance Industries' retail arm Reliance Retail Ventures has bought a 96 per cent stake in online furniture retailer Urban Ladder for ₹ 182.12 crore ($24.4 million), in an attempt to expand its presence in India's online retail market. Reliance said in a stock exchange filing today (November 15) that the acquisition will further enable the group's digital and new commerce initiatives and widen the bouquet of consumer products provided by the group. The conglomerate is looking to expand its new commerce venture, which connects neighborhood stores to Reliance for online deliveries of groceries, electronics, and apparel in order to emerge as a potent competitor to current e-commerce leaders such as Walmart Inc's Flipkart and Jeff Bezos's Amazon.
Meanwhile, Reliance Industries achieved the first mega cross-border deal of the year with Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook buying a 9.99 per cent equity stake in Reliance Jio for ₹ 43,574 crore. On November 5, Reliance Industries announced that the Public Investment Fund (PIF) of Saudi Arabia will invest ₹ 9,555 crore for an equity stake of 2.04 per cent in Reliance Retail Ventures. This will value the company at ₹ 4.59 lakh crore. (Also Read: Saudi Arabia's Investment Fund To Invest ₹ 9,550 Crore In Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Retail Ventures )
Recently, Reliance Industries said that it will invest up to $50 million or ₹ 371 crore in Breakthrough Energy Ventures, a climate change company owned by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates. The conglomerate will make the investment in tranches over the next eight to 10 years and the transaction is subject to approval from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
(With inputs from agencies)