Reliance Jio Asks Foreign Investors To Offload 8% Stake Through IPO

Reliance Jio is in talks with its foreign investors to sell 8 percent of their stake in the telecom giant in the upcoming initial public offering (IPO) of the company, according to a report by Reuters.

India’s largest telecom company has foreign investors like Meta, Google and KKR. The company has held talks with 13 foreign investors, according to the report.

Meta has a stake of 9.99 percent in Jio, while Google has a stake of 7.73 percent. Other major foreign investors include Vista Equity Partners and KKR.

Three Gulf sovereign funds—the Public Investment Fund, Mubadala, and Abu Dhabi Investment Authority—also have stakes in the company.

Jio is understood to file for the IPO this week with the financials of the third quarter.

The stake sale by foreign investors would be around 8 percent of their respective holdings, the report said, quoting a source involved in the IPO process.

This implies that about 2.5 percent of the total shares to be offered in the IPO would come from the stake sale by foreign investors. Meta selling 8 percent of its 9.99 percent stake would amount to about 0.8 percent stake sale by the social media giant.

However, the final share of the stake sale may change as the process of public listing progresses, the report indicated.

The Reliance Jio IPO will be a complete offer-for-sale. That is, the company would not be selling additional shares, but existing investors would be offloading a part of their stake in the open market. Hence, Jio will not be raising any money through the listing exercise.

“Total stake sale will be 2.5 percent to 3 percent. Reliance wants to leave money on the table for retail investors and there is no decision yet on valuation of the company,” the report said, citing another source.

Jio has fast-tracked the IPO process after the government relaxed public listing norms for companies worth over Rs 5 lakh crore. Jio has hired 17 banks to manage its listing.