The Jio Platforms' IPO saw the portion marked for Qualified Institutional Buyers (QIBs) fully subscribed at over 2x demand, within a few minutes of the issue opening on Wednesday, according to sources.
The QIB portion's demand was 2.86 times at 10 AM, sources said.
Institutions moved within minutes of bidding opening on Wednesday for what is being billed as India's largest public issue.
The QIB portion comprises 4,90,07,827 shares. Bids took the category to 1x in just 10 minutes of opening, and demand reached 2x in under 30 minutes, sources said.
As of now, the issue overall is subscribed 0.83 times, sources said.
The public issue, which opened on Wednesday and will close on October 23, is seeking to raise about ₹30,213 crore through a fresh issue of shares, with no offer-for-sale component.
The public offer of Jio Platforms is set to exceed Hyundai Motor India's ₹27,870 crore IPO of 2024, and become India's largest by value.
At the top of its ₹1,065-to- ₹1,119 price band, Jio is valued at roughly USD 108 billion.
{{/usCountry}}At the top of its ₹1,065-to- ₹1,119 price band, Jio is valued at roughly USD 108 billion.
{{/usCountry}}The issue is a fresh offering of up to 27 crore shares, and no offer-for-sale component implies that existing shareholders are not selling.
On Monday, the company allotted shares worth about ₹8,110 crore to 212 anchor investors at ₹1,119 apiece, the top end of its price band, ahead of the public offering. Bids for the anchor allocation exceeded ₹2.5 lakh crore, more than 30 times the amount available, according to people familiar with the matter. One person put total demand at about USD 26 billion.
Jio Platforms is betting that its technology, artificial intelligence and cloud ambitions will drive growth beyond telecom, Managing Director Akash Ambani said on Tuesday, pitching the Reliance Industries unit as a technology company ahead of what is set to be India's biggest-ever initial public offering.
"There is no either-or at Jio: the network is our technology," Ambani said in an interview with PTI, highlighting the company's in-house 5G core, cloud-native radio access network and software platform serving 533.3 million customers.
"Connectivity was the first product we built on that platform. Digital services, AI and cloud are what we are layering on top of it now," he said.
The IPO comes as investors assess whether the country's largest telecom operator can convert its vast customer base into higher-margin revenue from digital services, enterprise technology and AI, as subscriber growth alone becomes a less powerful driver of expansion.