Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Jio is planning to invest Rs 30,000 crore for expanding its 4G coverage and network capacity, taking the overall investment in the telecom unit to approximately Rs 1.9 lakh crore, reports PTI. MediaNama has written to Jio for a confirmation, we will update story once we hear back. In a notice to investors on Friday, the company said that the new investment would be made through an equity offering scheme for existing investors only through a “rights issue of 6 billion-9 percent non-cumulative optionally convertible preference shares of Rs 10 each for cash, a premium of Rs 40 per OCPS, aggregating Rs 30,000 crore.” This is Reliance Industries’ (RIL) fifth investment into its telecom unit. In July last year, just a month before the public roll out of its network, RIL invested Rs 15,000 crore into Jio through a rights issue. In the same month, Jio raised Rs 2,000 crore through 5 year bonds on a private placement basis. In October 2015, Jio raised Rs 3000 crore by issuing redeemable non-convertible debentures. In May 2015, the company had raised a $750 million loan (~Rs 4500 crore) from nine banks on a 10 year repayment period. The recent investment comes after Jio announced that its free call/data offer would be extended up till March 2017. As of December 31st, Jio claimed to have over 52 million connections. TRAI data also showed that Jio had outpaced top three operators (Airtel, Idea, Vodafone) in terms of subscriber additions with monthly growth rate of 122%. Investment by…
