(Bloomberg) -- Global investment firm KKR & Co. is investing additional 20.69 billion rupees ($249.19 million) in Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s rapidly expanding retail unit as the tycoon looks to expand business operations and take on global competitors including Amazon.com Inc. and Walmart Inc.
KKR’s follow-on investment will take its total equity stake to 1.42% in in Ambani’s Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd. on a fully-diluted basis, the Mumbai-based firm said in an exchange filing Monday. In 2020, KKR had invested 55.50 billion rupees in the retail unit.
The deal comes after Ambani told shareholders last month that several global investors were keen to buy into the country’s biggest brick-and-mortar retailer looking to further deepen its operations in India. The venture headed by Ambani’s daughter, Isha, has undertaken a series of acquisitions as it takes on global firms trying hard to establish themselves in India’s highly competitive retail sector dominated by mom-and-pop stores.
The Qatar Investment Authority last month invested 82.78 billion rupees in Reliance Retail, picking up a stake of 0.99% in billionaire’s retail unit.
This investment values Reliance Retail Ventures at a pre-money equity value of 8.3 trillion rupees, the company said. That compares with a previous fund-raise value of 4.21 trillion rupees in 2020.
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