NEW DELHI - U.S.-based private equity firm Silver Lake will invest 56.56 billion rupees ($746.6 million) in Jio Platforms, the digital services arm of billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries, as the Indian oil-to-telecom conglomerate steps up efforts to reduce its substantial debt pile.
The investment, announced by Reliance in a stock exchange filing on Monday, comes less than two weeks after Facebook invested $5.7 billion to take a 9.99% stake in Jio Platforms. The deal was one of the largest investments by the U.S. social media giant and made it the largest minority shareholder in the telecom provider, which has over 388 million subscribers in India.