Reliance Approves Draft Prospectus for Long-Awaited Jio Listing

Reliance Industries has cleared a major step toward listing its telecom and digital division. Chairman Mukesh Ambani said the board had approved the draft prospectus for the initial public offering of Jio Platforms, and that his children Akash Ambani, Isha Ambani Piramal and Anant Ambani would lead the listing process. Hours later, the company filed its draft red herring prospectus with India's market regulator, formally beginning the process.

The filing names a succession-minded leadership team for one of India's most valuable companies and turns one of the country's most anticipated offerings from expectation into a concrete proposal. The draft documents describe a fresh issue of up to 27 crore (270 million) shares, and analysts estimate the listing could value Jio Platforms at $130 billion to $180 billion, which would make it the largest public offering in India to date. Reliance Industries holds about 66 percent of Jio Platforms, with Meta and Google among the other shareholders. Jio reshaped India's telecommunications and data market over the past decade, and its public debut would give domestic and foreign investors direct access to that business.

The listing arrives during a global series of large technology offerings, from SpaceX in the United States to artificial intelligence developers preparing to go public, that is testing how much investors will pay for scale and growth in a higher-rate environment.