Reliance Industries-backed Jio Platforms, India’s largest telecom operator, on Friday filed a draft red herring prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Board of India, setting the stage for what could become the country’s biggest-ever initial public offering and marking a milestone after years of speculation over the listing.
The company, which will offer 27 crore shares for sale, is likely to raise as much as ₹36,000 crore according to market estimates, valuing Jio Platform (which has investment from a number of marquee investors such as Meta, Google) at close to ₹12.5 lakh crore.
The entire fund raise will be done via issue of new shares, a part of which is likely to be earmarked for the existing shareholders of RIL, signalling none of the existing investors are cashing out through the offer for sale. The IPO proceeds will be used to retire all or part of the ₹27,500-crore debt and for other general corporate purpose, the DRHP revealed.
The IPO will test India’s capital markets, which have cooled in recent months after the US Israeli conflict with Iran rattled global markets and weighed on investor sentiment. However, the second half of this calendar year promises to be exciting with NSE, India’s largest stock exchange, filing a DRHP with Sebi on Thursday.
Announcing the filing of the prospectus, Mukesh Ambani, chairman and managing director of Jio’s parent RIL, described the development as “a deeply emotional moment for me, for the entire Reliance Family, and millions of its shareholders”.
“Akash, Isha and Anant are heading the Jio IPO process and will lead the next generation of value creation opportunities in the future. The proposed listing of Jio will demonstrate to the world that India can build technology companies of global scale, global capability and global value,” Ambani said in his address to the shareholders at the annual general meeting of RIL.
Marquee investors
RIL, which holds a little over 66 per cent stake in Jio, had stunned the Covid-ravaged corporate world by raising funds from global investors, including Meta, Google, private equity firms Vista Equity Partners, KKR, General Atlantic and Silver Lake, sovereign funds such as the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, by selling about 33 per cent of its stake in 2020.
Those investors are betting on India’s fast-growing digital economy of 1.4 billion people, where smartphone penetration is accelerating, internet costs are among the world’s lowest and a young, mobile-first population is moving online at scale. In recent years, Jio Platforms has diversified beyond telecom into AI, cloud and enterprise network services, as well as app development.
In FY26, Jio Platform reported a topline of ₹1.47 lakh crore and a profit after tax of ₹30,000 crore.