Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio Platforms has held talks with 13 marquee foreign investors to sell down 8 per cent of individual stakes in an upcoming IPO of the company, a Reuters report said.
Jio Platforms, which houses the world’s second-largest telecom company by users after China Mobile, is set to file for approval of its IPO in Mumbai as early as this week, the report added.
Major investors in Jio Platforms
Reliance Jio Platforms’ big investors on the list include Meta, with a 9.99 per cent stake, and Google, with a 7.73 per cent stake, followed by Vista Equity Partners and KKR. Three Gulf sovereign funds, the Public Investment Fund, Mubadala, and Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, are also investors.
Reuters report said that each investor’s sale of 8 per cent of their holdings effectively implies about 2.5 per cent of Reliance Jio’s total outstanding shares offered in the listing, as it has planned.
Meta selling 8 per cent of its 9.99 per cent holding would mean a 0.8 per cent stake sale by the U.S. tech giant, for example. While the talks have focused on each investor selling 8 per cent of its holding, the final numbers could still change.
Jio Platforms IPO size
The Reliance Jio Platforms IPO is being structured as an offer-for-sale, a common strategy in India where no new funds are raised by the companies and existing shareholders offload stakes, to be taken up by the public and other investors.
“Total stake sale will be 2.5 per cent to 3 per cent,” said people aware of IPO plans. “Reliance wants to leave money on the table for retail investors, and there is no decision yet on the valuation of the company.”
In 2020, Jio Platforms raised more than $20.5 billion from stake sales to foreign investors.
In November, investment bank Jefferies estimated Reliance Jio’s valuation at $180 billion. A Reuters report said the IPO could be worth as much as $4 billion, though final numbers will only be decided later.
Meanwhile, Reliance Jio Platforms has hired 17 banks to manage its Mumbai stock listing.
