Ambani’s Retail Unit Valued at $34 Billion in Share Swap
Reliance Retail’s valuation, post the share swap, is double that of Avenue Supermarts, which runs D-Mart supermarkets.
(Bloomberg) -- A stock swap offer to help shareholders of billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s unlisted retail business monetize their investment has valued the unit at $34 billion.
Share owners in Reliance Retail Ltd. can exchange four shares for one of its listed parent Reliance Industries Ltd., according to a so-called scheme of arrangement posted on the group’s website. With Reliance’s market capitalization at 9.6 trillion rupees ($135 billion), the share swap values the subsidiary at 2.4 trillion rupees, according to Bloomberg’s calculation.
Besides helping Reliance Retail employees monetize illiquid stock options, the share swap also gives the first indication of the unit’s valuation at a time when Ambani, Asia’s richest man, is scouting for investors in the retail unit. He has promised to slash the group’s net debt to zero by March 2021 after an investment spree of $76 billion in the past five years, bulk of it on its massively disruptive telecom carrier.
The valuation set by Reliance exceeds that of Tesco Plc, the U.K.’s biggest supermarket chain, which is valued at $32 billion. It’s also double that of Avenue Supermarts Ltd., which runs India’s biggest supermarket chain.
Reference Value
“This may be a step toward creating a reference value, fixing a floor price for any future strategic investments in Reliance Retail,” said Rajiv Sharma, Mumbai-based analyst at SBICAP Securities Ltd. “The street is estimating the unit’s value at plus or minus 30% of that reference value.”
The derived valuation is almost 14% lower than analyst estimates, BloombergQuint reported Thursday. An email sent to Reliance Retail spokesman seeking comments on the valuation went unanswered.
Reliance Industries’ shares slipped 2% in Mumbai on Thursday to close at 1,515.4 rupees, outpacing the decline in benchmark S&P BSE Sensex which lost 0.7%.
Ambani had told shareholders in August that plans are afoot to find investors in the retail and telecom units. “We will induct leading global partners in these businesses in the next few quarters, and move toward listing of both these companies within the next five years,” he said.
For the year to March, Reliance’s organized retail revenue jumped 89% to 1.3 trillion rupees in the year. The earnings before interest and taxes jumped 169% to 55.5 billion rupees, according to a company statement which did not specify a net income for the business.
Reliance Retail, with 10,901 stores across the country, runs India’s largest chain of neighborhood supermarket stores and consumer electronics stores besides being the top wholesale supplier to nation’s army of small shopkeepers.
--With assistance from Baiju Kalesh.
To contact the reporters on this story: Bhuma Shrivastava in Mumbai at bshrivastav1@bloomberg.net;Ronojoy Mazumdar in Mumbai at rmazumdar7@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Arijit Ghosh at aghosh@bloomberg.net
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