initial public offering of Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd.
Since then, at every annual general meeting, shareholders and Dalal Street investors have eagerly waited for Ambani to reveal the timeline and details of the IPO.
However, after announcing IPO plans in 2019, Ambani clinched 12 deals in 2020 to sell more than 25% stake in the digital services arm, Jio Platforms, which houses the telecom business Reliance Jio Infocomm.
The stake sale in Reliance Jio helped the conglomerate raise about Rs 1.18 lakh crore. This includes a 10% stake that Facebook picked for more than Rs 43,500 crore and a 7.7%
stake that Google bought for Rs 33,700 crore.
Besides Facebook and Google, a plethora of private equity investors and sovereign wealth funds bet their money on Jio, as Ambani aimed to connect every part of India
through the 4G network services.
In 2020, the enterprise value of Jio Platforms was estimated to be Rs 5 lakh crore or $63 billion, and based on the Street estimates, this valuation has gone up by around 27-28%.
It’s been five years and Ambani has rather stayed mum on the IPO front.
At this juncture, rather than taking Jio public, Ambani is focussing on scaling up the 5G network reach as it aims to complete its target of pan-India rollout before December this year.
So far, Jio’s true 5G has been rolled out in as many as 2,300 towns and cities. For scaling up 5G operations, RIL chalked out Rs 2 lakh crore investment.
The conglomerate said that it’s on track to meet this target and a reiteration will come in at the AGM.
Besides, the company recently launched a 4G-featured affordable JioBharat mobile phone and is targeting a potential 250 million feature phone users in India.
Reliance is also set to launch the fixed wireless access device – Jio Airfiber – in the festive quarter, as suggested by reports.
Jio is the largest mobile network operator in India and the third largest mobile network operator in the world.
Given the priorities set out by the Ambanis for the telecom business, the wait for existing investors looking for an exit opportunity could be longer.
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