New Delhi: Mukesh Ambani has no time frame to play at anymore, because “soon” has been a while now. Jio Platforms chairman has said their draft RHP was approved by the board of the company on the same day and would be sent to India’s securities regulator, the Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI).The chairman of Reliance Industries has told the share holders at the company’s annual conference that their company board had approved their draft RHP the same day and would be sent to the securities regulator, Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI), of India that day.
Far removed from what was a year ago. Reuters reported that Jio has prematurely shelved a listing which would have been India’s largest ever in 2025 quietly. Since 2019, Ambani has been hinting at a listing and had said that he was progressing toward the listing within the next 5 years. Five years passed and passed.
Now that the numbers are large, it does not seem like such a bad wait. Valuation ranging from $130 billion to $180 billion were suggested by analysts. The offer is projected to raise about $4 billion, but Reliance has not said how big the offering will be. Since then, SEBI has approved a similar IPL for around $3.8 billion which jio is expected to launch within a year, reports said. At its current rate, it will be the largest IPO ever in India, even topping Hyundai Motor India’s 2024.
The filing illustrates new issue of up to 27 crore equity shares with a face value of ₹10 every share. About ₹27,500 crore of the proceeds it would be used to pay down debt at the subsidiary, Reliance Jio Infocomm, which operates the actual phone network. Not 100% a growth re-raise. Housekeeping is a very significant portion.
This is a point that the shareholder list plays into. Reliance has a stake of approximately 66.4% in Jio Platforms. Meta has less than 10% and Google about 7.7% and were the buyers in a 2020 fundraising round that raised about ₹1.5 trillion, about $20 billion at the time. Reuters said it had approached around 13 large foreign investors and asked if they were willing to sell their up to 8% stake in the offering. Who is going to cut, Meta and Google are likely to be among the unanswered questions. Neither has made any public statement on the issue.
They’re no longer just business partners of Reliance’s. With both organizations as strategic partners, Ambani announced a new AI unit. In the meeting, Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg explained that the India-focused joint venture will bring its open-source Llama models to Indian businesses. On the other hand, Google will take its AI technology to a data centre that Reliance is constructing in Jamnagar. Jio has also invested in the Nvidia for AI infrastructure.
Then there’s Elon Musk. Jio is India’s biggest mobile operator with 500 million users, and almost 80% of the company’s revenue is derived from telecom. Starlink’s entry to India has been brewing in the background for some time now, and Reliance has stated that it will not give up its satellite broadband service. Next, the industry needs to “connect India by air”, said Akash Ambani, chairperson of the board of directors at Reliance Jio Infocomm at event. Instead of building up its own capacity, this company is lined up with deals with satellite equipment companies around the world in order to launch rapidly.
The same timing is an invitation to comparison as well. Meanwhile, SpaceX recently went public for a record valuation of $1.7 trillion, or nearly $75 billion in the U.S. market and investors are closely watching other AI companies go public. That is the yardstick for Jio’s offering to be smaller. However, in India, the largest IPO year (2024) generated a total of $20.5 billion, with this being a $4 billion deal is massive.
What’s still unclear is the actual date. SEBI values Jio a year, but market consideration, investor sell down discussions and the pricing is yet to be determined. The first time Ambani missed his own deadline, it was in the same year.
But for him the pitch is greater than one listing. He spoke to shareholders that the offering will demonstrate to the world that India can develop technology companies on a global level. It will be up to public investors to decide if they agree shortly.
