The telecom and digital business arm of RIL attracted offers to purchase shares from marquee overseas investors Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, BlackRock and Fidelity and domestic insurance companies and mutual funds such as LIC, SBI, HDFC and ICICI
Our Bureau Published 24.10.26, 10:20 AM
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Jio Platforms Ltd, a subsidiary of Mukesh Ambani led Reliance Industries, attracted bids worth ₹7.4 lakh crore from investors on the final day of bidding, making it arguably India’s most successful initial public offer (IPO) to date.
The telecom and digital business arm of RIL attracted offers to purchase shares from marquee overseas investors Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, BlackRock and Fidelity and domestic insurance companies and mutual funds such as LIC, SBI, HDFC and ICICI.
Small investors also poured in bids worth nearly ₹26,000 crore, with the retail section subscribed 2.72 times.
The IPO attracted 1.38 crore applications, the highest ever in the world. Chinese memory chip giant CXMT’s $8.6 billion IPO, Asia’s biggest this year, attracted around 9.4 million accounts. Overall, the ₹30,213 crore Jio IPO, seen as a test of investor appetite amid a weak secondary market in India, was subscribed 22.19 times.
At the upper end of the price band of ₹1,119 a share, Jio will be valued at ₹10.3 lakh crore, or $109 billion, making it one of the top three companies by market capitalisation in India, when it starts trading on October 28.
Post Jio’s listing, the Reliance group will become India’s largest business group by aggregate listed market capitalisation, pipping the Tata group.
JPL counts Meta Platforms and Alphabet’s Google among its longest-standing investors, who bought shares in the company during a private fund raise of $20 billion in 2020 during the Covid pandemic.
This week, Jio’s IPO was fully subscribed within 100 minutes of opening on Wednesday, a contrast with most Indian IPOs, where books typically build gradually and institutional investors often wait until the final hours to place bids.
The IPO closure coincided with the birthday of Akash Ambani, the managing director of JPL, and his twin sister Isha, who also sits on the JPL board along with their father and younger brother Anant.
Jio Platforms’ telecoms business, launched in 2016, disrupted India’s mobile telephony by offering free voice and data, hitting rivals Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea.
On the basis of customers in a single country having 53.3 crore customers, it is now second only to China Mobile. Going forward, Jio is looking beyond mobile connectivity to lead its next phase of growth, setting sights on 10 crore homes for broadband services and a $56-billion opportunity in India’s enterprise digital services market.
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