Jio is currently India’s biggest telecom network provider with more than 388 million subscribers. At the time of Facebook’s deal, Jio’s enterprise value was $65.95 billion. However, Silver Lake’s deal comes at a 12.5% premium of that — $68.07 billion. In a statement, Egon Durban, Silver Lake Co-CEO and managing partner, said the market potential addressed by Jio is enormous: Silver Lake has an impressive portfolio of investments that includes Twitter, Alibaba Group, Airbnb, Alphabet’s Verily and Waymo units, and City football group (Manchester City and its sister teams in the United States, Australia, China, Japan, Spain, and Uruguay.) In an earnings call last week, Jio’s Chairman, Mukesh Ambani said that after Facebook’s investment, several more firms are interested in investing into Reliance Jio. While Jio’s partnership with Facebook was quite strategic with WhatsApp and JioMart, launching solutions for small businesses straightaway, Silver Lake’s investment will bring additional funds to the network provider’s coffers.
