Mumbai’s biggest corporate story of the year now has a date, a price and a number attached to it. Jio Platforms, the digital and telecom arm of Reliance Industries, will open its initial public offering for subscription on October 21 and close it on October 23, with anchor investors getting the first window on October 19. Shares are expected to begin trading on October 28.
The offer, priced in a band of ₹1,065 to ₹1,119 per share, is a fresh issue of up to 27 crore new shares — roughly 3 per cent of the existing capital — with no offer-for-sale component. At the top of the band, it would raise about ₹30,213 crore, making it India’s largest public market offering so far. That would push past Hyundai Motor India’s ₹27,870-crore share sale from October 2024, which had held the record until now.
But the IPO is more than a fundraising exercise. According to ET Intelligence data cited by The Times of India, the listing at an estimated valuation of ₹10.3 lakh crore would lift the Reliance Industries group’s combined market capitalisation to about ₹28.5 lakh crore — comfortably ahead of the Tata Group’s ₹25.5 lakh crore as of October 15. In other words, once Jio starts trading, Mukesh Ambani’s group is set to overtake Tata as India’s most valuable conglomerate.
A First for the Group in Nearly Two Decades
This is the first IPO from the Reliance group in close to twenty years, and the symbolism is not lost on anyone in Mumbai’s financial circles. Before the listing, the RIL group’s market capitalisation stood at ₹18.2 lakh crore. The gap between that figure and the projected ₹28.5 lakh crore shows just how much value a separate listing is expected to surface.
An analyst quoted by The Times of India put it plainly: Jio’s value is currently embedded within Reliance Industries, and a separate listing will unlock the holding company discount. The combined market capitalisation of Reliance Industries and Jio Platforms, the analyst added, would put clear daylight between the RIL and Tata groups.
For context on where the rest of India’s corporate giants stand: the Adani Group ranks third with a market cap of ₹17.48 lakh crore, followed by the HDFC Group at ₹13.91 lakh crore and the Bajaj Group at ₹13.88 lakh crore, according to ET Intelligence.
Global Funds Line Up in the Anchor Book
Demand for the issue appears strong well before the books open. The Economic Times reported that the anchor book has drawn interest from some of the world’s biggest institutional investors, including the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC), Fidelity, Norway’s Government Pension Fund Global, New World Fund Inc and Smallcap World Fund Inc.
Domestic institutions are in the mix too. SBI Mutual Fund, Life Insurance Corporation of India, ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund, HDFC Mutual Fund and Kotak Mahindra Mutual Fund are among the potential bidders, according to the report. Emails sent to the lead bankers and to the company remained unanswered until the report’s publication.
How the Offer Is Structured
The mechanics of the issue are worth a close look, particularly for retail investors weighing whether to bid.
The price band runs from ₹1,065 to ₹1,119 per share. Investors must bid for a minimum of 12 shares and in multiples of 12 thereafter. Eligible employees applying under the employee reservation portion will receive a discount of ₹54 per share.
Two reservation categories are built into the offer. Shares worth up to ₹2,500 crore are reserved for eligible Reliance Industries shareholders — individuals and Hindu Undivided Families holding public shares of RIL as of October 14 — and up to ₹500 crore for eligible Jio Platforms employees. Together, the two categories account for reservations worth up to ₹3,000 crore.
There is no offer-for-sale component, which means the company itself is raising the money rather than existing shareholders selling down. As for where the proceeds will go: Jio Platforms plans to use part of the funds to prepay up to ₹27,500 crore of borrowings at its operating subsidiary, Reliance Jio Infocomm. The remainder is earmarked for general corporate purposes, according to the October 14 red herring prospectus.
One more data point for scale: last month, the National Stock Exchange itself launched a ₹22,562-crore IPO. Jio’s offering dwarfs even that.
Valuation: Big, But Below Earlier Hopes
At the cap price, the offer implies a market value of about ₹10.3 lakh crore for Jio Platforms. That is a staggering number by any measure — but it falls short of the roughly ₹11 lakh crore the company had earlier been said to seek. The pricing decision suggests the family and its bankers chose certainty of demand over squeezing out the last rupee of valuation, a calculation that appears to have paid off given the anchor book interest.
‘A Testament to the Next Generation of Leadership’
The IPO is also a coming-out moment of sorts for the third generation of the Ambani family. At the media briefing ahead of the issue, banker Uday Kotak hailed the offering as “a testament to the development of the next generation of leadership”, naming Akash and Isha Ambani. “RIL Group, after Jio’s listing, will be India’s largest conglomerate by market cap under the leadership of Mukesh Ambani,” Kotak said.
Akash Ambani, the managing director of Jio Platforms, offered a measure of how far the company has come. Jio went from being “the 14th operator to enter the market in 2016” to India’s largest telecom operator, he said, and today carries more than 60 per cent of India’s data traffic.
The Failed Assignment That Started It All
Every giant company has an origin story, and Jio’s, as told by Isha Ambani at the same press conference, is disarmingly small.
It was around 2009-10. Isha and her twin brother Akash were studying in the United States and were back home in Mumbai for a break. She had an assignment to submit online. “I tried to submit the assignment, but unfortunately, the internet did not work, and I couldn’t submit it,” she recalled.
What followed were long conversations about why India should be left behind in the digital space. “Why was it that we didn’t have the same type of connectivity that we enjoyed in the West?” she said. Akash, she recalled, firmly believed the answer was to create a digital technology platform company. In 2016, Jio launched. “And here we are today in 2026,” said Isha, who serves as a director on the board of Jio Platforms.
She framed Jio’s journey as an extension of the Reliance way of building businesses: ideas backed by a long-term perspective, scale that can change the economics of an industry, and execution that is “hard-coded” into the organisation.
There was history invoked, too. Isha pointed to her grandfather Dhirubhai Ambani, who took Reliance Industries public in 1977. For him, she said, Reliance was never just a company but a promise that every Indian should share in the country’s growth and prosperity. “Three generations later,” she said, she, Akash and their brother Anant Ambani remain committed to the motto “Growth is life”.
What Happens Between Now and Listing Day
The sequence is tight. Anchor investors bid on October 19. The main subscription window runs October 21 to 23. Trading is expected to begin on October 28. If the issue prices at the top of the band and the listing goes well, India will have a new record-holder for its largest IPO — and the country’s corporate league table will have a new name at the top.
The stakes extend beyond one family’s fortune. A listing of this size tests the appetite of both global and domestic capital for Indian new-age infrastructure assets at scale. The anchor book interest reported so far suggests that appetite is intact. Whether the retail response matches it, investors will find out within the week.
Quick Facts: The Jio Platforms IPO at a Glance
- Price band: ₹1,065–₹1,119 per share
- Offer size: up to 27 crore fresh shares, about 3 per cent of capital; no offer-for-sale
- Expected raise at cap price: about ₹30,213 crore — India’s largest IPO so far
- Implied market value: about ₹10.3 lakh crore
- Subscription window: October 21–23; anchor bidding October 19; trading expected October 28
- Minimum bid: 12 shares, in multiples of 12; ₹54-per-share employee discount
- Reservations: up to ₹2,500 crore for eligible RIL shareholders (as of October 14), up to ₹500 crore for eligible employees
- Use of proceeds: prepay up to ₹27,500 crore of Reliance Jio Infocomm borrowings; balance for general corporate purposes
FAQ
When does the Jio Platforms IPO open and close?
The IPO opens for subscription on October 21 and closes on October 23, 2026. The anchor investor portion opens for bidding on October 19, and shares are expected to begin trading on October 28.
What is the price band and size of the Jio Platforms IPO?
The price band is ₹1,065 to ₹1,119 per share. The offer is a fresh issue of up to 27 crore shares — about 3 per cent of the existing capital — with no offer-for-sale component. At the cap price it would raise about ₹30,213 crore, making it India’s largest IPO so far, ahead of Hyundai Motor India’s ₹27,870-crore offering in October 2024.
How will the Jio Platforms IPO affect Reliance's ranking among Indian conglomerates?
At an estimated valuation of ₹10.3 lakh crore, the listing would lift the Reliance Industries group’s market capitalisation to about ₹28.5 lakh crore, ahead of the Tata Group’s ₹25.5 lakh crore as of October 15, according to ET Intelligence data — making RIL India’s most valuable conglomerate.
What will Jio Platforms use the IPO proceeds for?
Part of the proceeds will prepay up to ₹27,500 crore of borrowings at its operating subsidiary, Reliance Jio Infocomm. The remaining proceeds will be used for general corporate purposes, according to the October 14 red herring prospectus.
Are Reliance shareholders eligible for anything in the Jio IPO?
Yes. Shares worth up to ₹2,500 crore are reserved for eligible Reliance Industries shareholders — individuals and Hindu Undivided Families holding public RIL shares as of October 14 — and up to ₹500 crore for eligible Jio Platforms employees, who also receive a ₹54-per-share discount.