Jio Platforms lines up a 37,700-crore offer for 21 October

Jio Platforms is preparing an initial public offering of about 37,700 crore rupees, or 4 billion dollars, with the public issue expected to open on 21 October and the company aiming to list on 28 October. The Economic Times reported the timetable from people familiar with the plan: a red herring prospectus after 12 October, a price band of 1,150 to 1,220 rupees, an anchor book on 19 October, subscription from 21 to 23 October, and allotment on 26 October.

The draft prospectus already describes the shape of the sale. Jio Platforms proposes to issue up to 270 million new shares, about 2.9 percent of post-issue equity. The face value in the public issue tracker is 10 rupees. The retail portion in that tracker is 35 percent. Listing is planned on the BSE and the NSE. The registrar named in the issue file is Kfin Technologies. The lead-manager list runs through Kotak Mahindra Capital, Morgan Stanley India, BofA Securities India, Axis Capital, BNP Paribas, Citigroup, CLSA, DAM Capital, Goldman Sachs India, HDFC Bank, HSBC, ICICI Securities, IIFL, Jefferies, JM Financial, JP Morgan India, SBI Capital Markets, UBS and 360 One.

If the 37,700 crore rupee figure holds, the offer would pass the National Stock Exchange's own listing, a 22,562 crore rupee issue that had stood as the second-largest in India. Size is the comparison that matters to the market, not the adjective. A 2.9 percent sale of new shares is a small slice of the company and a large amount of cash. It raises capital. It does not hand control to public shareholders.

The dates are still a plan. The Economic Times attributed the band and the calendar to people familiar with the development, not to a filed red herring prospectus. The issue tracker still lists the price band and lot size as unannounced. Both can be true at once. A company can have a working band of 1,150 to 1,220 rupees and a public document that has not yet printed it. The document that will lock the numbers is the RHP expected after 12 October. Until that filing, the 21 October opening is a target, and the anchor date of 19 October is the first moment outside investors are meant to commit.

Dussehra sits in the middle of that week. The ET report placed the offer around the festival. A subscription window of 21 to 23 October is three trading days, which is the standard length, not a shortened book. Allotment on 26 October and listing on 28 October leave a weekend and a single working day between close and debut. That is a tight settlement if the book is as large as 270 million shares. The registrar's capacity is part of the plan, which is why Kfin is already named.

Reliance has talked about a Jio listing for years. What is new this week is a calendar with five dates and a rupee band. Investors who want a number to underwrite can use 1,150 to 1,220 rupees only as a reported range. They cannot yet use it as an offer price. The figure they can use is the one in the draft: up to 270 million new shares, 2.9 percent of the post-issue capital, on a face value of 10 rupees.

The other figure worth keeping beside it is the NSE issue at 22,562 crore rupees. A Jio sale at 37,700 crore rupees would clear that mark by about 15,000 crore rupees. That gap is the reason the offer is being discussed as the largest Indian listing. It becomes the largest only if the RHP prints a size in that neighbourhood and the book clears. Neither has happened.