Reliance Industry is Actively Looking Forward to Strengthening its Digital Commerce
By: Ashwathy Nair
- Reliance Industry Ltd has raised more than 2.2 lakh crore through stake sales.
- Actively looking to acquire startups and mature companies in order to strengthen its digital commerce.
- Reliance has been able to build a ‘digital layer’ on top of the existing ‘physical layer’.
Reliance Industry Ltd (RIL) has raised more than an amount of 2.2 lakh crore through stake sales, it is most likely to go on a shopping spree as the Covid-19 pandemic has concerned the prospects of cash-strapped businesses, which is making them to takeover targets.
The Reliance Industry is actively looking forward to acquiring the startups as well as mature companies, which will help them to strengthen its digital commerce, 5G, and fiber-to-the-home businesses to create India’s largest digital ecosystem with each side of telecom, retail, and payments.
In June, the Reliance Industry Ltd had said that it has become a zero-net debt, after offloading the stakes in the Jio Platforms unit in a back-to-back transaction with the strategic and financial investors.
“Reliance Industries will pay creditors when the payment is due. Currently, the company is planning to use the money it raised over the past few months to invest across businesses, rather than retire debt”.
According to a September 9 report, Kotak Institutional Equities said that the Reliance Industries is likely to make large investments in accordance to acquire a synergistic opportunity across businesses to organize its large cash balance and incremental free cash flow.
On September 9, the retail arm of Reliance Industry, Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd has sold a 1.75% stake for 7,500 crores to Silver Lake Partners, a private equity firm.
“Reliance Retail is likely to use a part of the fundraise for Future group acquisition pay-out/debt repayment,” said Axis Capital in a September 9 note.
According to the last month’s research note by BofA Securities, Reliance Industries has been able to build a ‘digital layer’ which is on top of the existing ‘physical layer’ of retail shops across the electronics, grocery, and apparels.
The report said adding to it that, Reliance Industry Ltd would most likely to have the JioMart app inside WhatsApp. “We expect Reliance Industries to increase its investments in supply chain and tech-enabled logistics so as to improve last-mile customer experience”.
In the last three years, Reliance Industry Ltd has made almost an acquisition of 30 startup space.
