KKR Gets A Piece Of India's Retail With $754M Investment

KKR & Co Inc. KKR is investing $754 million (INR 55.5 billion) in India's Reliance Retail Ventures Limited, a subsidiary of Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries.

What Happened: KKR will buy a 1.28% stake in Reliance Retail via its Asia private equity funds — taking the latter's pre-money equity value to $57 billion (INR 4.2 trillion), Reliance said in a statement Wednesday.

This is KKR's second investment in a Reliance subsidiary. It bought a $1.5 billion stake in Reliance's telecom arm - Jio Platforms, earlier this year.

"We are pleased to deepen our relationship with Reliance Industries through this investment in Reliance Retail Ventures, which is empowering merchants of all sizes and fundamentally changing the retail experience for Indian consumers," said Henry Kravis, co-founder and co-CEO of KKR.

This deal follows Silver Lake's path, which invested $1 billion in Reliance Retail earlier this month after buying a stake in Jio.

Mukesh Ambani's Ambitions: Reliance has been on a stake-selling-spree amid the pandemic. The conglomerate's Jio platform sold 33% stake to Facebook Inc. FB, Alphabet Inc. GOOGL GOOG, and Intel Corp INTC for $20 billion earlier this year.

Ambani has turned his attention to retail — betting on India's billion-plus consumers as smartphone and internet penetration has changed the way they shop.

Reliance is said to have offered a $20 billion stake in Reliance Retail to Amazon.com Inc. AMZN earlier this month as Ambani looks to offload as much as 40% shares overall.

These deals have boosted Ambani's personal fortune by $26 billion this year, making him the world’s fifth-richest person with a net worth of $84.7 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Price Action: KKR shares traded 0.7% higher at $34.90 in Tuesday's after-hours session.

Related Link: Private Equity Firm Carlyle In Talks To Invest $2B In India's Reliance Retail: Report