Reliance Industries Might Acquire Justdial: Here's Why

To increase its presence in the local commerce and payments segment, Reliance Industries is expected to acquire Justdial. The company is in advanced talks with JD promoters and is likely to spend between Rs. 5,920 crores and Rs. 6,660 crores on the same deal.

If the deal is completed, then it will help Reliance Retail to get a merchant database. In fact, Justdial is expected to take its broad meeting on Friday (July 16th, 2021). The broad meeting is expected to discuss the proposal and likely to make some announcement on the same day.

Reliance Industries And Justdia Deal

It is important to note that Reliance Retail is the largest retailer in the country, whereas Justdial is just a search engine, which has close to 150 million visitors from websites, applications, mobiles, and its telephone hotline.

Notably, the promoter of Justdial is holding a 35.5 percent stake in the firm, which is close to Rs. 2,787.9 crores, reports ET. However, the report claims that RIL might make some investment into the company.

The report also claims that the talks between both companies are going on since April. Goldman Sachs and Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas are the advisors of the transaction.

Shares Of Justdial

The shares of Justdial have increased to 52.4 percent in the last six months. However, the market watchers said that the prices of the shares are likely to increase further ever since the rumors of the deal are going on. The digital directory has started its operations in 2013, but getting tough competition from two leading brands, i.e, Facebook and Google.

On the other hand, Jefferies analysts Vivek Maheshwari said "Reliance Retail has an ambitious plan of digitally connecting kirana stores (B2B) which would serve as a back-end for B2C new commerce, over time. Plans are underway to expand beyond grocery, electronics, and apparel and become a complete horizontal platform."

Furthermore, Reliance has also joined hands with Facebook to increase its presence in the retail business. Additionally, the company wants to expand its services, which is why it is looking at all brands, which can help the company to increase its reach and presence.