Mukesh Ambani beats Jack Ma as Asia’s richest person after the deal with Facebook

Facebook is investing ₹43,574 crores for a 9.99% stake on a fully diluted basis in Jio Platforms, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL). This was the social media giant’s biggest deal since 2014 when it took WhatsApp. The deal sent RIL’s shares surging, and in Wednesday’s trade, they obtained about 10%.

Facebook’s $5.7 billion investment in Reliance Jio Platforms has built Mukesh Ambani Asia’s richest person once again.

“The US company will buy about 10% of Jio Platforms, which brings collectively digital apps and a wireless platform under one umbrella,” RIL announced in a statement Wednesday.

This eased Ambani’s wealth rise from about $4 billion to $49 billion on Wednesday. The agreement put Ambani about $3 billion ahead of China’s Jack Ma as of 1120 am in London, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The ranking officially updates after the conclusion of each trading day in the US.

The wealth of Mukesh Ambani, who holds the world’s largest oil refinery, had decreased by $14 billion on the Bloomberg ranking on Tuesday, the highest dollar fall of a person in Asia. Jack Ma had lost almost $1 billion through Tuesday, according to Bloomberg

Jio was begun in September 2016 and, in just over three years, became India’s largest mobile services company by subscriber base. It is the only Indian telecom company that has its whole network built on 4G VoLTE (voice over long-term evolution) technology. All other businesses have a combination of 2G, 3G, and 4G technologies.

“At the core of our partnership is the commitment that Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, and I experience for the all-round digital transformation of India,” Mukesh Ambani told in a web video posted on Jio’s Facebook page, continuing that Facebook’s brands have become household names in India. “WhatsApp, in particular, has joined our people’s daily vocabulary in all the 23 official languages of India.”

The partnership with Jio would let Zuckerberg step up his development in a country that is quickly embracing online payment and e-commerce as more people get smartphones. Jio Infocomm promptly shifted into a position of dominance by offering free plans and undercutting wireless market competitors.

With its half-billion internet users, the South Asian country is an essential market for the world’s most generous technology companies, including Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, and Google. In India, Facebook has about 250 million users, while WhatsApp has more than 400 million.