Reliance Industries is working with banks on early preparations for an overseas listing of its digital and wireless business, sources told Bloomberg, after the unit attracted more than $10 billion (Dh36.7bn) of investment in a month.
The conglomerate backed by Mukesh Ambani, Asia’s richest man, is preparing Jio Platforms for an initial public offering outside of India, the sources said. The offering could happen in the next 12 to 24 months and the company hasn’t decided on a listing venue. There’s also no final decision on timeline and size.
US-based private equity firm KKR last week became the latest investor piling into Jio Platforms after Mr Ambani sealed deals with Facebook, Silver Lake Partners and General Atlantic recently. An overseas listing could potentially give the digital business a higher valuation and allow existing investors to exit, the people said.
A representative for Reliance Industries declined to comment.
Jio Platforms combines Reliance’s digital assets with its wireless carrier, Reliance Jio Infocomm, into a holding company aimed at becoming a top e-commerce and payments operator in India’s vast consumer market.
Investors are betting on Jio’s access to India’s huge consumer market, and its potential to shake up traditional industries – from retail to education and payments – in the country through its technology. As retail rules have changed in recent years allowing more foreign competition, India's ecommerce market has become a major battleground for technology and retail giants including Amazon.com, Walmart and Google’s parent Alphabet.
Reliance Jio was started in 2016 but is already India’s largest wireless carrier. The operator stormed past rivals by building a nationwide 4G network, then offering free calling and data services at prices that established competitors with older networks could not match without losing money. Mr Ambani was weighing up an IPO of Reliance Jio three years ago after a $31bn investment spree, Bloomberg News reported in 2017.
Shares of Reliance Industries have fallen about 5 per cent this year, giving the conglomerate a market value of about $120bn.
The Bio
Hometown: Bogota, Colombia
Favourite place to relax in UAE: the desert around Al Mleiha in Sharjah or the eastern mangroves in Abu Dhabi
The one book everyone should read: 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It will make your mind fly
Favourite documentary: Chasing Coral by Jeff Orlowski. It's a good reality check about one of the most valued ecosystems for humanity
Global state-owned investor ranking by size
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China
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Norway
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Canada
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Ferrari 12Cilindri specs
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Power: 819hp
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The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
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What are the main cyber security threats?
Cyber crime - This includes fraud, impersonation, scams and deepfake technology, tactics that are increasingly targeting infrastructure and exploiting human vulnerabilities.
Cyber terrorism - Social media platforms are used to spread radical ideologies, misinformation and disinformation, often with the aim of disrupting critical infrastructure such as power grids.
Cyber warfare - Shaped by geopolitical tension, hostile actors seek to infiltrate and compromise national infrastructure, using one country’s systems as a springboard to launch attacks on others.
