India's Jio draws about $25 billion in IPO anchor investor bids, sources say

By Reuters News

By Aditya Kalra and Vibhuti Sharma

MUMBAI, Oct 19 (Reuters) - Mukesh Ambani's $3.2 billion Jio Platforms IPO has drawn bids of about $25 billion from institutions including GIC, BlackRock and Fidelity, totaling almost 30 times the quota reserved for anchor investors, two people familiar with the matter said.

The telecoms, ​cloud and AI group on Monday opened its record initial public offering to institutional investors who can bid for up to 30% of the offering exclusively earmarked for them, before the issue opens for public subscription on Wednesday.

Jio upended India's telecoms market in 2016 by offering free voice calls and cheap data and soon became the country's biggest mobile operator. It now has more than 500 million subscribers and competes with Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea.

Its listing is seen as a test of what global investors will pay for that scale and for Jio's expansion into cloud and AI.

Led by Mukesh Ambani's son ​Akash Ambani, Jio operates Reliance Industries' RELI.NS telecom and digital businesses, spanning mobile services, fixed broadband, ​cloud, entertainment, ⁠enterprise technology and AI offerings.

Fidelity, Singapore's GIC, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and BlackRock were among the investors to place bids for the institutional quota, the two people told Reuters.

Reliance, which is the ultimate owner of Jio Platforms, did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.

ADIA, BlackRock, Fidelity and GIC did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.

Jio's IPO follows September's listing of the National Stock Exchange of India, underscoring investor appetite for large offerings in the Indian market. It will be the first offering by Reliance since its listing of Reliance Petroleum in 2006.

Year-to-date Indian IPO proceeds rose 8.3% ​to $12.65 billion compared with the same period last year, LSEG data shows.

A successful IPO would place Jio Platforms among ‌the top ⁠four Indian listed companies by market capitalisation, behind its parent Reliance, its rival Bharti Airtel BRTI.NS and the country's largest private lender HDFC Bank HDBK.NS.

Jio plans to use up to 275 billion Indian rupees ($2.90 billion) of the net proceeds to repay or prepay borrowings of its telecom subsidiary, Reliance Jio Infocomm.

($1 = 94.9475 Indian rupees)

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