As reported by persons familiar with the situation, Reliance Industries Ltd. is in talks with lenders about a foreign-currency loan of up to $2 billion to fund the continued expansion of its oil-to-telecoms business.
The huge corporation, headed by Asia's richest man Mukesh Ambani, intends to acquire the loan through India's specialised foreign commercial borrowing mechanism, the people said, declining to be identified because the conversations are private.
According to one of the sources, the facility may have a maturity date of three to five years, and the revenues will be utilised for capital expenditures and to refinance another credit that matures in September.
As per one of the sources, lenders involved in the conversations include Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., and Standard Chartered Plc. Representatives for those institutions declined to comment, while a spokesperson for Reliance said they couldn't respond right away.
Ambani is raising financing as he expands the telecoms and consumer-facing parts of an empire founded on crude-oil refining. After achieving net debt negative status in 2020, Reliance's expansion frenzy has been driven by substantial borrowings.
Reliance has said it aims to invest $75 billion in renewable energy over 15 years and last year acquired the $3 billion streaming rights to the highly coveted Indian Premier League cricket tournament. The firm is also rolling out 5G network services across the South Asian nation, which is expected to cost $25 billion.