India's largest retailer Reliance Retail Ventures today said it has taken sole control of Just Dial Limited in accordance with the SEBI Regulations, with effect from September 1, 2021. The Just Dial deal will allow Reliance access to the 25-year-old listings company’s merchant database.
As per earlier statements, Just Dial founder and CEO VSS Mani will continue to lead Just Dial as MD and CEO.
Reliance Retail, in a statement to the stock exchanges today, said on July 20, 2021, it had acquired 1.31 crore equity shares of Rs 10 each of Just Dial at a price of Rs 1,020 per equity share from Just Dial founder and CEO VSS Mani via the block window facility. The acquisition represents 15.63 per cent of the post-preferential issue paid-up equity share capital of Just Dial.
It said on September 1, 2021, Just Dial, after the preferential issue, allotted 2.12 crore equity shares of Rs 10 each at a price of Rs 1022.25 per equity share including a premium of Rs 1,012.25 per equity share). It represented 25.35 per cent of the post-preferential issue paid-up share capital of Just Dial to Reliance Retail.
Reliance Retail Ventures, a subsidiary of Reliance Industries Limited and holding company of all the retail companies under the RIL Group, had reported a consolidated turnover of Rs 157,629 crore and net profit of Rs 5,481 crore in FY21.
Just Dial, on the other hand, is India's leading local search engine platform that provides search-related services to users across India through multiple platforms such as websites, apps, over the telephone and text. Just Dial had 30.4 million listings and 129.1 million quarterly unique users across the web, mobile, App and voice platforms as of 31-Mar-2021.
Also read: Will the Justdial acquisition add value to Reliance Retail?