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Jio Platforms IPO closes today: subscription so far, how allotment works and the dates that follow
The Jio Platforms share sale closes later on Friday after being 5.4 times subscribed at the end of day 2. Institutions bid heavily; retail was at 1.55 times. Allotment is due on Monday, refunds and share credit on Tuesday, and listing is planned for Wednesday.
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4 min
Bidding in the Jio Platforms initial public offering closes on Friday, 23 October, with the issue 5.40 times subscribed by the evening of the second day. The final figure will be known only after the books close, and in an issue of this kind the last day often brings the biggest change in the retail and non-institutional categories.
At 5:54 pm on Thursday, qualified institutional buyers had bid 12.87 times the shares set aside for them, non-institutional investors 5.67 times, retail investors 1.55 times and employees 2.05 times. The total stood at 5.40 times. Earlier in the day, at about 3 pm, the issue was 4.38 times subscribed, with qualified institutions at 10.07 times, non-institutional investors at 4.60 times, retail at 1.40 times, employees at 1.93 times and shareholders of the parent company at 3.36 times. By then bids had been received for about 86 crore shares against about 20 crore shares on offer. These are interim numbers taken before the issue closed.
The day-wise pattern shows demand building. The issue was 2.98 times subscribed on the evening of the first day, 3.48 times by 11 am on the second, 4.38 times by 3 pm and 5.40 times by 5:54 pm. The retail portion was fully booked by late morning on the second day. Small non-institutional bids were at 2.06 times and large ones at 2.48 times at 11 am, according to one report that day.
The gap between categories is wide. Institutions are 12.87 times covered, and retail investors, who have 35 per cent of the issue reserved for them, are 1.55 times covered. That has a practical meaning for individual investors.
How allotment works
When a category is oversubscribed, not every applicant can be given shares. In the retail category, an investor who applied for the minimum lot of 12 shares is typically selected by a draw, and the more oversubscribed the category, the lower the chance. The final retail multiple on Friday evening will show how tight allotment is.
The schedule from here:
| Step | Date |
|---|---|
| Bidding closes | Fri, 23 Oct |
| Allotment finalised | Mon, 26 Oct |
| Refunds and shares credited | Tue, 27 Oct |
| Listing planned | Wed, 28 Oct |
Allotment status can be checked on the website of the registrar, KFin Technologies, or on the BSE and NSE sites, with a PAN or application number. The listing date is described as tentative in some places.
Bids can be placed between Rs 1,065 and Rs 1,119 a share. The anchor investors, who bid on 19 October, were allotted shares at Rs 1,119 worth about Rs 8,110 crore. Bids are placed online only. The issue is about Rs 30,200 crore, and it is entirely new shares, with 27 crore of them on offer, and the proceeds go mainly to pay down borrowings of the telecom arm, Reliance Jio Infocomm. At the band the company would be valued at roughly Rs 2.9 to 3 lakh crore.
Unofficial grey market quotes were about Rs 247 a share, or 22 per cent above the top of the band, on Thursday, implying a listing price near Rs 1,366. Those numbers are informal, change through the day and do not tell anyone where the shares will trade.
What to read before you decide
Prospective investors who want to bid before the books close should read the risk factors in the red herring prospectus, which was filed on 14 October after the draft went to the regulator on 19 June, and should not rely on grey market prices or on subscription multiples alone. Details such as Jio's 533.3 million subscribers as of 30 June, quoted in the offer material, describe the business but do not say what the shares are worth.
Markets have been rattled by oil and by rate-hike talk this week, and the Sensex fell 460 points on Thursday. Shares of Vodafone Idea, a Jio competitor, have been falling during the issue. How the IPO is received after the close, and how it lists on Wednesday, will be watched as a gauge of appetite for large offerings. The exchanges will publish the final subscription figures once bidding ends.
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