India's Reliance Retail offers 40% stake to Amazon for $20 billion

India’s Reliance Industries is offering to sell a 40 percent stake in its retail arm Reliance Retail for $20 billion to Amazon.com Inc.

Amazon has made no decision but had held talks with the Mukesh Ambani-led firm and expressed interest in negotiating deals.

A stake in Reliance Retail could give Amazon access to the Jio telecoms platform and its vast retail footprint across India.

Reliance Retail, which had close to 12,000 stores selling extensive types of products, had already raised $20 billion this year by selling nearly 33 percent of its Jio Platforms business from investors, such as Google and Facebook.

It just announced receiving a $1 billion investment from Silver Lake Partners.

Last month, Reliance Retail acquired rival Future Group’s retail arm.

Asia’s richest man, Ambani is focusing on attracting more investors to Reliance Retail as it prepares to take on the likes of Walmart Inc’s Flipkart and Amazon.com Inc’s Indian arm.

Among those weighing potential investments are Abu Dhabi state fund Mubadala Investment Company and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, which are both backers of Jio Platforms.

Among those weighing a potential investment are Abu Dhabi state fund Mubadala Investment Company and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, which are both backers of Jio Platforms.

Shares in Reliance increased as much as 8.5 percent on Thursday to become the first listed Indian firm to reach a market capitalization of over$200 billion.