Jio Platforms IPO day 2: 5.2 times subscribed, institutions far ahead of retail; price band, dates and GMP

The price band is Rs 1,065 to Rs 1,119 a share. A lot is 12 shares, so the minimum bid is Rs 12,780 at the lower end. The offer is entirely fresh shares: 27 crore new shares, with no sale by existing holders. At the band, the company is valued at about Rs 2.88 lakh crore to Rs 3.02 lakh crore, which works out to about 32 to 33 times its earnings per share for the last financial year.

The money is meant mainly to repay borrowings of Reliance Jio Infocomm, the operating telecom company, with up to 25 per cent available for general corporate purposes. Jio Platforms is the parent. Reliance Jio Infocomm had 533.3 million customers in India on 30 June 2026, and Akash Ambani is the managing director. Shares are offered online only, through a bank account or UPI. A telecom analyst's report cited in the offer material says Jio reached pan-India 5G coverage in 15 months and 284.9 million customers in 45 months.

How the shares are split

Not more than half of the issue is for institutions, at least 15 per cent for non-institutional investors and at least 35 per cent for retail. There are also reserved portions: employees can bid up to Rs 500 crore in all, and shareholders of Reliance Industries as of 14 October can bid up to Rs 2,500 crore, with a maximum bid of Rs 2 lakh each and a discount of Rs 54 a share. KFin Technologies is the registrar for checking allotment status.

Anchor investors bid on 19 October at Rs 1,119 and were allotted shares worth about Rs 8,110 crore across 212 entries, which is about 60 per cent of the institutional portion. The largest allocations went to the Life Insurance Corporation of India, which took shares worth about Rs 500 crore, the New World Fund, about Rs 486 crore, and the Government of Singapore, about Rs 341 crore. Half of the anchor shares are locked in for 30 days and half for 90.

What the grey market says

The unofficial grey market premium was about Rs 247 a share on Thursday, which implies a listing price near Rs 1,366 on the upper band, or roughly 22 per cent above it. The premium has ranged between Rs 206 and Rs 273 since 14 October. These figures are not official, move through the day and are no guide to what the shares will actually do on listing day.

The IPO has landed in a week of falling markets, with the Sensex down 460 points on Thursday as oil rose. Shares of Vodafone Idea, a Jio competitor, slipped for a third session. The draft prospectus was filed with the market regulator on 19 June and the final red herring prospectus on 14 October. Anyone considering a bid should read the risk factors in that prospectus and check the allotment through the registrar after the issue closes, since the final category subscription will not be known until Friday.