ALBAWABA – Through its sovereign wealth fund, Qatar invested $1 billion in Ambani’s Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd. to acquire 0.99 percent of the company that is worth $100 billion, news agencies reported Thursday.
Reliance is India’s biggest brick-and-mortar retailer, owned by Mukesh Ambani, and is working fast to take on competitors, including Amazon.com Inc. and Walmart Inc., Bloomberg reported.
The deal comes as Ambani’s conglomerate is also considering a public listing for Reliance Retail and has started buying back shares and giving them to their employees as stock options.
The Qatar Investment Authority bought a 0.99 percent stake in Reliance “on a fully-diluted basis,” the Mumbai-based firm said in a statement on Wednesday.
Reliance is headed by Ambani’s daughter, Isha. And the company has undertaken a swath of acquisitions as it challenges global rivals who are trying hard to establish a toehold in India’s highly competitive retail sector.
Isha called the QIA’s investment “a strong endorsement” of India’s economy and Reliance’s retail business.
Reliance Retail raised over $6 billion three years ago from a series of major investors, including the sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates and now Qatar.
QIA increased its bets in India, having picked up a 2.7 percent stake in Indian billionaire Gautam Adani’s green energy business after the tycoon was hit by a damaging short-seller attack in January.
