Reliance Industries Ltd. (RIL) has announced strategic investments of worth more than ₹5,230 crore in DEN Networks Ltd. and Hathway Cable and Datacom Ltd. to support the expansion of Reliance Jio’s JioGigaFiber service.
RIL said it has agreed to make primary investment of ₹2,045 crore through a preferential issue and secondary purchase of ₹245 crore from the existing promoters for a 66% stake in DEN Networks and primary investment of ₹2,940 crore through a preferential issue for a 51.3% stake in Hathway Cable and Datacom.
Open offers
RIL would also make open offers in DEN and Hathway as well as two of Hathway’s subsidiaries for which a public announcement has been made through the stock exchanges. These include GTPL Hathway Ltd., jointly controlled by Hathway with 37.3% stake and Hathway Bhawani Cabletel and Datacomm, a Hathway subsidiary . “The acquisition and partnership is part of the JioGigaFibre roll-out. Now, we will make good progress. The transaction will help in the go-to-market strategy,” said Anshuman Thakur, head of strategy and planning, Reliance Jio.
“Reliance is privileged to partner with the Rajan Raheja Group and Sameer Manchanda. Reliance has the highest regard for the management teams in the respective companies and will work with them to further strengthen and improve business operations,” RIL said in a statement.
“These strategic investments are in furtherance of Reliance’s mission of connecting everyone and everything, everywhere – always at the highest quality and the most affordable price and transforming India’s digital landscape,” it said.
Through this transaction, Reliance and Jio will be strengthening the 27,000 local cable operators that are aligned with DEN and Hathway to enable them to participate in the digital transformation of India. Jio plans to bring JioGigaFiber to more than 50 million homes across 1,100 Indian cities and towns, in the shortest possible time.
The transactions are subject to customary regulatory and other approvals.
