Reliance terms reports of 40% stake sale in retail arm to Amazon as ‘speculative’

Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) has termed the reports of a possible stake sale in its retail arm worth about $20 billion to Amazon as speculative. According to a Bloomberg report, RIL was offering 40 per cent stake sale to Amazon and the e-commerce giant had shown interest in investing in Reliance Retail.

After the speculations around the report gathered momentum, Reliance said that it won’t confirm or deny any transaction as it “evaluates various opportunities on an ongoing basis”. Mukesh Ambani-led giant conglomerate said that the company will continue to make “necessary disclosures in compliance" with listing obligations and disclosure requirements.

"In light of a high incidence of speculative media queries and incorrect and ex parte media articles relating to purported capital transactions into Reliance Industries or our group companies, we would like to reiterate that as a policy, we do not comment on media speculation and rumours and we cannot confirm or deny any transaction which may or may not be in the works," RIL said in a statement.

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Stake sale to Silver Lake

Reliance urged media to carefully examine any such “speculative information” and safeguard themselves and their readers from publishing or recycling unfounded news. The report and subsequent non-denial came a day after Reliance announced the sale of a 1.75 per cent stake in Reliance Retail Ventures Limited (RRVL) to American private equity firm Silver Lake for a whopping Rs 7,500 crore.

The investment by Silver Lake is the second billion-dollar investment in a Reliance Industries subsidiary after the $1.35 billion investment in Jio Platforms earlier this year. RRVL  currently operates 12,000 stores nationwide serving nearly 640 million people annually. Through its new commerce strategy, Reliance Retail has started a transformational digitalization of small and unorganised merchants and expects to expand the network to over 2 crores of these merchants in the future. 

“I am delighted to extend our relationship with Silver Lake to our transformational efforts of building an inclusive partnership with millions of small merchants while providing value to Indian consumers across the country in the Indian retail sector,” Ambani said in a statement.

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(With PTI inputs)