NAME: Ashwath Rau
LAW FIRM: AZB & Partners
JURISDICTION: India
PRACTICE AREA: Corporate and M&A, Investment funds, Private equity
INDUSTRY SECTORS: Banking and financial services, Technology and telecommunications
AZB & Partners senior partner Ashwath Rau wins our June lawyer of the month based on his extended lead role in representing Reliance’s Jio Platforms in its myriad of foreign investments that began in April and continued until early July.
While law firms advising the various investors have altered, Rau has remained the constant lead legal figure for Reliance Industries and Jio Platforms across all transactions.
At AZB & Partners, Rau is a distinguished practitioner with numerous high-profile deals and clients under his belt. He is widely acknowledged by industry media as one of India’s top corporate lawyers. He is a corporate and private equity specialist, with a focus on the financial services and technology industries.
The most recent stake purchases into the Indian digital services company come from two Abu Dhabi-based sovereign investors and Intel Capital, the investment arm of the multinational semiconductor giant. In late June, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority paid $750 million for a 1.16% stake in Jio, while Mubadala Investment Company paid $1.2 billion for its 1.85% share.
On July 3, Intel Capital announced it took a 0.39% stake in Jio for $254 million. It is the ninth investor in Jio since Facebook led the fund-raising rounds in late April. The other shareholders that completed their transactions recently are private equity players Silver Lake, Vista Equity, KKR and General Atlantic.