BENGALURU: India's Reliance Industries is offering to sell a roughly US$20bil stake in its retail arm to Amazon.com Inc, Bloomberg News reported on Sept 10, citing one unnamed person with knowledge of the matter.

The oil-to-telecoms conglomerate led by billionaire Mukesh Ambani, which has already raised US$20bil in this year from investors including Facebook and Google, is willing to sell an up to 40% stake in the retail business to Amazon, the agency reported.

Neither Amazon nor Reliance responded to Reuters requests for comment.

Asia's richest man, Ambani, is turning his focus toward retail after successfully building India's top telecom network by customers in less than four years, hoping to take a dominant position as India's huge consumer market comes of age.

Amazon has held talks about investing in Reliance Retail and expressed interest in negotiating potential deals but has made no decision, Bloomberg's report said.

Reliance Retail, with close to 12,000 stores selling a wide range of products, acquired rival Future Group's retail arm last month and on Sept 9 announced a US$1bil investment from Silver Lake Partners.

Shares in Reliance were up 6.2% in midday trading in Mumbai after hitting a record intraday high. The company earlier on Sept 10 became the first listed Indian firm to cross US$200bil in market capitalisation.

 - Reuters