Reliance Industries Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh Ambani is back again as the richest man in Asia, owing to the recent deal with Mark Zuckerberg¡¯s Facebook Inc.
Mark Zuckerberg has reportedly agreed to pump in $5.7 billion or Rs 43,574 crore for a 9.99 per cent stake in Jio Platforms¡ªa unit of Reliance Industries, reports ET Now.?
According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, the Indian billionaire has toppled Jack Ma, the founder of e-commerce major Alibaba Group, to get the top spot in Asia.?
Ambani's fortune rose about $4.7 billion to $49.2 billion after Reliance Industries Ltd. gained 10%. The jump put Ambani about $3.2 billion ahead of China's Jack Ma, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.?
"At the core of our partnership is the commitment that Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, and I share for the all-around digital transformation of India," Ambani said in a web video posted on Jio's Facebook page, adding that Facebook's brands have become household names in India. "WhatsApp in particular has entered our people's daily vocabulary in all the 23 official languages of India."
According to Live Mint, partnership with Jio will allow Zuckerberg to step up his expansion in a country that is rapidly embracing online payment and e-commerce as more people use smartphones especially as Jio Infocomm quickly moved into a position of dominance by offering free plans and undercutting wireless market rivals.
Many analysts are of the view that the deal with Facebook will help the oil-to-telecom conglomerate to be become net debt-free by March 2021. It is worth mentioning here is that the social media giant¡¯s infusion of Rs 43,574 crore in Jio platforms is the largest foreign direct investment (FDI) minority investment in India.
In August 2019, Ambani had said in the annual general meeting that the company hopes to become net debt-free by March 2021. RIL had a net debt of Rs 1.53 lakh crore during the December quarter of 2019.
ALL INPUTS: Live Mint/ET Now