From roads to radio units, Anil Ambani group mulls $3.2-bn distress sale

International News

Indian tycoon Anil Ambani plans to raise about Rs 217 billion ($3.2 billion) by selling assets from roads to radio stations in a bid to cut debt.
The breakdown is like this, according to the group spokesman:
Reliance Infrastructure Ltd. is seeking Rs 90 billion from the sale of nine road projects.
Reliance Capital Ltd. aims to raise Rs 12 billion by selling its radio unit, and Rs 115 billion from monetizing its holdings in the financial business.
Ambani is waging a war on debt. He said on June 11 that his Reliance Group repaid Rs 350 billion in the past 14 months through asset disposals.
But a large pile remains. The four biggest group companies still have about Rs 939 billion of debt. And that excludes Reliance Communications Ltd., Ambani’s former flagship firm, that recently slipped into insolvency.
Further asset sales would help Ambani bolster the financial health of his group’s companies after a string of setbacks that included an auditor resigning at one of the firms and plunging stock prices at others. Rating cuts have also flagged credit market concerns.
Quick closure

 Quick closure of the planned asset sales is key. CARE Ratings had pointed to delays in divestments at Reliance Capital in an April statement while cutting the financier’s rating.Reliance Communications’ 2017 deal to sell its telecom assets to Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd., owned by Anil’s elder brother Mukesh Ambani, was scrapped earlier this year...Read More

One deal at a time: How Mukesh Ambani is trying to take on Amazon in India

Company News

A $2.5 billion spending spree involving more than two dozen deals provides some insight into how Mukesh Ambani is piecing together a strategy to take on Amazon.com Inc. in India.
Asia’s richest man is sharpening his focus on e-commerce with a string of tiny acquisitions and stake purchases to face the world’s largest online retailer, after shaking up India’s telecommunications industry with cheap data and free calls.

The acquisitions represent a new strategy for Ambani’s Reliance Group, whose founder -- his father Dhirubhai Ambani -- built a petrochemicals business and the world’s largest oil-refining complex from scratch. It’s a clear pivot toward consumer offerings in a country that’s becoming a battleground for giants such as Amazon.com and Walmart Inc.’s Flipkart Online Services Pvt.

“The deals may be tiny, but it’s more likely that they are putting together a team of talented people by acquisitions, who can then be invested in to build out larger platform products,” said Kunal Agrawal, an analyst with Bloomberg Intelligence.

Ambani is racing to grab a share of an online shopping market that Morgan Stanley estimates will grow to be valued at $200 billion by 2028 from about $30 billion last year. India will have 829 million smartphone users by 2022, according to Cisco Systems Inc., from a projected half a billion this year. That means a potential surge in demand for online services and products from music to food delivery, electronic gadgets and clothes.

‘Shopping Experience’


 Ambani outlined his plan to shareholders in July, saying the effort will involve the group’s unlisted businesses Reliance Retail Ltd...Read More