Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) may acquire Future Group’s retail business for up to Rs 27,000 crore ($3.6 billion), two people familiar with the details told Mint.
It has been in talks with Future Group.
The deal value will include the debt that Reliance plans to absorb. It was previously reported that Reliance had held talks with lenders of Future Group for a haircut on loans and easier terms of repayment.
According to the persons, five of the listed entities of Future Group -- Future Retail Ltd, Future Consumer, Future Lifestyle Fashions, Future Supply Chain and Future Market Networks -- will be merged into Future Enterprises Ltd before the sale of the assets.
Future Enterprises Ltd will then conduct a slump sale of its retail assets to one of the retail subsidiaries of Reliance Industries Ltd.
As part of the deal, fashion and grocery retail formats from Future Group’s listed entities barring apparel brands Lee Cooper and All will be acquired.
Reliance will also absorb partnerships that the Future Group has with foreign brands and retailers.
In another development, investment bankers Citigroup, Edelweiss, SBI Capital Markets, Credit Suisse and Deloitte were shortlisted on Monday and are in the running to be pre-IPO advisers for the initial public offering (IPO) of Life Insurance Corp. of India (LIC), the biggest share sale to be held in India, a person in the know told Mint.
These five firms have been shortlisted from a longlist of 11 entities. Two of these firms will finally be mandated for the pre-IPO work, the person added. LIC, in which the government holds a 95% stake, has assets worth Rs 34 trillion.
