Reliance Retail Purchases the Urban Ladder for 24.4 Million Dollars
Reliance Retail Purchases the Urban Ladder for 24.4 Million Dollars
Reliance Retail Venture Limited (RRVL), the largest retailer in terms of revenue and a subsidiary of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) has acquired a majority stake in furniture and décor platform Urban Ladder Home Décor Solutions for a cash consideration of Rs.182.12 crore, as the RRVL gears up to fight Amazon and Flipkart.
The company said in a stock exchange filing on Saturday night that the retail unit of billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) purchased 96 per cent of Urban Ladder and has the option to buy the remaining 4 per cent stake.
However, Reliance Retail Venture Limited (RRVL) initiates to make a further investment of up to Rs.75 crore, taking its ownership to 100 per cent in the furniture e-tailer, which is predicted to be completed by December 2023.
Meanwhile, the procurement of the Urban Ladder Décor Solutions comes three months after Reliance Retail obtained a majority stake in online pharma business Netmeds for around Rs.620 crore. Urban Ladder is 8 years old and operates a digital platform for furniture and décor products which was valued at around $1,200 crore in 2018, and set down to about Rs.750 crore in 2019.
Moreover, the last couple of years have been challenging for the furniture market as funding has remained moderate and investors have been pushing for it to become profitable.
Besides, in the recent month’s Reliance Retail has raised about 6.4 billion dollars after its subsidiary, Jio Platforms secured over $20 billion this year from Google and Facebook among other high-profile investors.
Also, Reliance Retail Venture Limited has entered the e-commerce space with Jio Platforms and the JioMart now has a presence in OVER 200 Indian cities and towns and it also maintains collaboration with Facebook for WhatsApp incorporation.
Lastly, the shares of home furniture continue to be raked up by only 11 per cent of the overall festive gross merchandise value (GMV) in the first week of e-commerce sales this year.
