Jio Platforms, the number one telecom operator of India has got a large amount of cash influx with the help of all the investments over the past few months. As per reports, Google is interested in investing in the telco as well. Jio Platforms and Google are in early-stage talks about the deal. It will be a $4 billion investment for which Google will get a minority stake of the company. This news comes from Bloomberg which reported that the final deal between the two corporate giants may change later or even fall apart. When asked about it in an interview earlier, Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google and Alphabet, neither confirmed nor denied the possibilities of investment on Jio Platforms.
Google’s $10 Billion Investment Plan for India
Much recently, Google announced its plans for investing $10 billion in India over the next 5-7 years. This $10 billion investment will come through a new digitisation fund. Google will distribute this investment over separate things such as equity investments, operational infrastructure, partnerships, and ecosystem investments. Reliance Jio so far has got investments from 12 companies/investment firms and has managed to raise over Rs 1,18,318.45 crore. But against that, Jio Platforms has diluted 25.24% of its stakes. Facebook got the largest stake of 9.99% amongst the 12 companies against its investment of $5.7 billion. The other companies/investment firms which have invested in Jio Platforms are — Qualcomm Ventures, Intel Capital, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, Mubadala, Silver Lake, Vista Equity Partners, General Atlantic, TPG, KKR, L Catterton, and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF). All these investments and the rights issue helped Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) go debt-free. Jio Platforms has received the subscription amount from a few of its investors. From L Catterton it received the amount of Rs 1,894 crore as well as Rs 11,367 crore from the Public Investment Fund. Jaadhu Holdings (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Facebook) also paid the Rs 43,574 crore and got the equity allotted to it. General Atlantic and Silver Lake have paid the subscription amount as well and have got the equity allotted to them.
