Google paid Rs 33,737 crore to RIL, 7.73% stake in Jio Platforms

Alphabet Inc’s unit Google has fully paid Rs 33,737 crore for acquiring a 7.73 percent stake in Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL)’s digital arm Jio Platforms. In this company of billionaire Mukesh Ambani, Google has also joined the list of global investors like Facebook. With this payment, it is also the largest investment by US tech company Google in any Indian company.

The Jio platform has raised Rs 1.52 lakh crore by selling its 33 percent stake to 13 financial and strategy investors in 11 weeks. This has helped RIL to repay the entire debt before its due date. RIL had set a target of becoming a debt-free company by March 2021 and the company has already become a fully debt-free company by this target.

RIL said in the information given to the stock exchanges that after obtaining all the legal approvals, RIL’s subsidiary Jio platform has acquired an amount of Rs 33,737 crore from Google International LLC. The Jio platform has allotted equity shares to Google International LLC, giving 7.73 percent equity shares of Jio Platform Limited to Google International LLC.

Both Google and Jio Platforms will also sign a memorandum of understanding with the Android operating system and Play Store to develop an entry-level affordable smartphone with Optima Gen. The Jio Platform is owned by Jio, India’s largest telecom company. It has more than 400 million users in India.