Jio Platforms opens what could be India's biggest-ever IPO

Jio Platforms is launching what could be India's biggest-ever initial public offering, aiming to raise up to 302bn rupees (£2.4bn). The offering, a first sale of shares to the public, targets a valuation of 10.3tn rupees when it floats, according to The Guardian.

The company has set a price range of 1,065 rupees to 1,119 rupees a share and is offering up to 270 million new shares. At the top end of that range it would be worth 10.3tn rupees, which would make it India's fourth-largest company behind Reliance Industries, Bharti Airtel and HDFC Bank.

The sale secured 212 anchor investors on Monday, large institutions that commit to buy shares before the wider offering opens. They include BlackRock, Singapore's sovereign wealth fund, the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, Fidelity Investments, Schroders, JP Morgan Asset Management, Franklin Templeton, Invesco and Prudential. Shares will be offered to retail investors on Wednesday, with the issue set to close on Friday, 23 October, and the deadline for buyers to confirm payment through the UPI mobile-payment system at 7:00 p.m. Indian time that day, according to the Red Herring Prospectus.

Jio Platforms was set up a decade ago as a subsidiary of Reliance Industries and is led by Akash Ambani, oldest son of Mukesh Ambani. It is backed by Meta Platforms and Google, whose investments in 2020 valued the business at 4.9tn rupees, less than half the current target.

Reliance is offering its more than 400,000 employees a 54 rupees per share discount to buy Jio shares. Its chairman has said Isha, Akash and Anant are heading the IPO process, and Jio has published offer documents through its investor-relations IPO page covering the prospectus, price band, allotment and listing details.