Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani 
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Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance becomes first Indian company to be valued at $200 billion

The shares of Reliance Industries were trading nearly 7% up on Thursday after reports of global investors and firms such as Amazon, KKR looking to invest in Reliance Retail.

Written by : TNM Staff

The shares of Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries surged to a new high on Thursday, a day after American private equity firm Silver Lake invested nearly a billion dollars (Rs 7,500 crore) Reliance Retail. At the time of writing, Reliance Industries was trading 6.67% (144.15 points) up at Rs 2305.40.

With the surge in share price, the company hit a market capitalization of Rs 14.63 lakh crore, making it the first Indian company to hit a market capitalization of $200 billion. Market capitalisation is the value of a publicly traded company and is calculated by multiplying the total number of shares by the current share price.

The surge in the stock also came as reports emerge that the company is set to raise investments from other private equity and sovereign wealth firms that invested in Jio Platforms.  

On Wednesday, Reliance Retail Ventures Limited (RRVL) announced an investment of Rs 7,500 crore from Silver Lake for a 1.75% equity stake.

Bloomberg reported on Thursday that Reliance Industries in is talks with Amazon to sell up to 40% stake in Reliance Retail for $20 billion, making it Amazon’s largest ever deal.

Meanwhile, Mint reported that Reliance Retail is also looking to raise over $5 billion more from global investment firm KKR, and sovereign wealth funds Mubadala Investment Co. and Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA). These three firms have already invested in Jio Platforms earlier this year. There were also reports that the company in is talks with Facebook for an investment as well.

Reliance Retail is Ambani’s next big bet after it raised Rs 1,52,056 crore from 13 financial and strategic investors including Google and Facebook in three months.

Mukesh Ambani said at the Reliance Industries annual general meeting in July that Reliance Retail was receiving strong investor interest from global players. As per reports, Reliance Retail is looking to raise $5.7 billion by selling about 10% in new shares.

Reliance Retail currently has around 12,000 stores across the country and sees about 640 million footfalls.

It also recently acquired Kishore Biyani’s Future Group’s retail and logistics business in a slump sale for Rs 24,713 crore, which includes its flagship hypermarket format BigBazaar, FBB, FoodHall, among others, adding over 2000 stores to its retail footprint.

Reliance Retail, through its New Commerce strategy, is looking to digitize small and unorganised merchants and wants to expand to over 20 million of these merchants.