By Aditya Kalra
NEW DELHI, Oct 23 (Reuters) – Subscriptions for Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s first IPO in two decades surged further on the final day of bidding on Friday, as investors bet on Jio Platforms’ $3.2 billion offering to tap into the nation’s telecom and digital sector.
Jio’s IPO, India’s largest ever, is being closely watched as a test of investor appetite for large listings at a time when AI-linked stocks are facing increased scrutiny. The company, whose mobile network serves more than 500 million users, is launching its IPO during the auspicious Hindu festive season.
Public subscriptions for the IPO crossed seven times the shares on offer by Friday, driven by strong demand from institutional and retail investors, employees and shareholders. Assuming bids were largely placed at the top end of the 1,119-rupee price band, total demand has now exceeded $16 billion.
That’s on top of so-called anchor investors like the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, BlackRock and Fidelity that bid for their exclusively reserved quota on Monday. Their reserved $854 million worth of shares received bids of over $25 billion.
The IPO values Jio Platforms at up to $108.3 billion, potentially making it one of India’s biggest companies by market capitalisation when trading starts on October 28. It counts Meta Platforms and Alphabet’s Google among its investors, and is led by Ambani’s eldest son, Akash Ambani.
The IPO got off to an unusually rapid start on Wednesday when the offering was fully subscribed within two hours of opening.
That contrasts with most Indian IPOs, where books typically build gradually and institutional investors often wait until the final hours to place bids.
RELIANCE FAMILY
Jio is part of Ambani’s Reliance Industries, a company often seen by Indian investors as a long-term wealth generator. Reliance shares have returned around 900% since 2006, beating the benchmark Nifty index’s 685% return, LSEG data shows.
Jio’s telecoms business was launched in 2016 and disrupted the market by offering free voice and data, hitting rivals Bharti Airtel and Vodafone-Idea. Today, on the basis of customers in a single country, Jio’s 500 million-plus users are second only to China Mobile’s.
As of Friday, the IPO’s retail portion was subscribed two times, the employee quota drew bids for 2.5 times the shares on offer and the existing Reliance shareholders quota was 5.7 times subscribed, exchange data showed.
Reliance was founded by Akash’s grandfather Dhirubhai Ambani, who died in 2002 after building the company’s brand image with shareholders via large-scale meetings in Mumbai’s open grounds in the 1980s. On its website, it says the 1977 listing of the company created history by “ushering the equity cult in India”.
(Reporting by Aditya KalraEditing by Shri Navaratnam)
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