BIZ-JIO-LISTING

Mumbai | The greeting followed a professional hardsell that combined financial numbers and uniqueness of telecom behemoth Jio in fluent Gujarati, a pitch rooted in the state's entrepreneurial heritage and an appeal to investors to back a business that has become central to the Ambani family's future.

Akash, 34, addressed a select group of brokers specially flown from Gujarat and other major trading hubs in western India on Saturday as he looked to recreate his grandfather Dhirubhai Ambani's magic from almost 50 years back when he took parent Reliance Industries public and turned tens of thousands of ordinary Indians into shareholders, people with knowledge of the matter said.

The outreach was part of a global campaign spanning more than 60 investor meetings across global financial centres, including Hong Kong, Singapore, Abu Dhabi, London, and New York, as Akash, 34, leads the push for what is set to be India's biggest-ever initial public offering (IPO).

The challenge is to secure a landmark debut amid a stock market downturn, a valuation below the family's reported ambitions and a public spat with Elon Musk over satellite communications.

At that meeting, Akash, Managing Director of Jio Platforms, was joined by his twin sister Isha as well as banking tycoon Uday Kotak, who has been accompanying and anchoring the IPO roadshows and press conferences as a veteran financial advisor, representing the book-running lead managers and acting as a historic link to the Reliance group's market legacy.

Kotak opened the meeting in Gujarati, addressing the participants as "my fellow brokers". "For the next 4-5 minutes, he spoke in chaste Gujarati and only switched to English for presenting hard numbers," one of the people said.

Isha, who has in recent years focused on the retail business she helms, made a rare cross-business appearance on the Jio stage. At the Mumbai meeting, she, too, spoke in Gujarati and credited Akash for the success of Jio. Youngest sibling, Anant, who was present at the press conference and a separate investor meeting last week, was not present at the Saturday event, another person said.

Akash followed, opening in Gujarati and only switching to English for the hard numbers.

"The pitch cast Reliance as a Gujarati company, a family business whose roots in the state are part of its identity, and then made the case for the Jio IPO," another person said.

Dhirubhai Ambani was born in Gujarat, and Jio Platforms filed its red herring prospectus with the Registrar of Companies in Ahmedabad, Gujarat.

The message was aimed at the regional broking community whose retail clients stood behind Reliance in the 1970s and 1980s.

At the end of the presentation, Akash was mobbed by the brokers for selfies and he made it a point to personally greet as many of them as time permitted.

Sources said the attempt was to tap into Gujarat's deep-rooted trading culture and long tradition of investing in equities. The strategy echoes Dhirubhai Ambani's success in drawing ordinary Indian households into equity ownership when Reliance went public in 1977, turning a share sale into a lasting relationship with investors.

While the twins and Kotak become the public face of what is set to be India's biggest-ever IPO, leading investor roadshows and media engagements, patriarch Mukesh Ambani has been conspicuous in his absence from the public-facing campaign. Yet his imprint is evident across the deal, as he stays out of the spotlight, allowing the next generation to take centrestage while he leads from behind.

Evidence of this was visible on Monday when Jio secured a strong early endorsement from institutional investors. The company allotted shares worth about Rs 8,110 crore to 212 anchor investors at Rs 1,119 apiece, the top of its price band, ahead of the public offering.

Bids for the anchor allocation exceeded Rs 2.5 lakh crore, more than 30 times the amount available, according to people familiar with the matter. One person put the total demand about USD 26 billion.

Life Insurance Corporation of India received the largest single allocation, worth nearly Rs 500 crore. Global investors, including Fidelity, BlackRock, Singapore's GIC, and the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, were among those seeking shares.

The public issue, which opens on October 21 and closes on October 23, is seeking to raise about Rs 30,213 crore through a fresh issue of shares, with no offer-for-sale component. At the top of its Rs 1,065-to-Rs 1,119 price band, Jio is valued at roughly USD 108 billion. The valuation is well short of the more than USD 150 billion that the company had reportedly hoped for when it filed its draft prospectus in June.

The issue is a fresh offering of up to 27 crore shares with no offer-for-sale component, so existing shareholders are not selling. It is about 14 per cent smaller than the roughly Rs 35,000 crore indicated in the draft papers. Even so, it is set to exceed Hyundai Motor India's Rs 27,870-crore IPO of 2024 and become India's largest by value.

ECHOES OF DHIRUBHAI

Reliance's November 1977 IPO raised Rs 2.8 crore from about 58,000 investors and was subscribed seven times, according to the company's annual report. It is widely credited with helping start India's "equity cult".

Reliance's annual shareholder meetings grew into mass gatherings, including one at Cooperage Football Ground in south Mumbai in the mid-1980s.

At the 2012 AGM, Mukesh Ambani said Rs 1,000 invested at the 1977 IPO had grown to Rs 7.78 lakh.

The investor Akash is courting is very different from the one his grandfather knew. According to National Stock Exchange data, India has more than 130 million registered market investors, nearly 40 per cent of them under 30. Those investors focus on valuation, profitability and growth more than on the Reliance name.

Reliance Industries shares are down about 23 per cent this year, and is set for their worst annual performance since 2011. The parent's refining business, the group's traditional cash cow, has come under strain from disruption due to Middle East oil flows tied to the war in Iran, and from US pressure on India over Russian crude, analysts said.

Analysts said the pricing reflects a broader reset in Indian equities more than any Jio-specific problem.

Jio has more than 533 million subscribers. That is about a third of India's population. Airtel has 492 million users in India. Reliance owned 66.43 per cent of Jio Platforms as of March 31. Meta's affiliate holds nearly 10 per cent and Google 7.7 per cent.

MUSK AND THE FAMILY SUCCESSION

Jio signed a partnership last year to sell SpaceX's Starlink equipment in India, but it also has its own low-orbit satellite business. No applicant has received a final licence for satellite broadband in India. This month, Musk accused Mukesh Ambani of using his influence to block Starlink's entry, calling him "the real boss of India". Jio said in a statement that it welcomes competition in satellite communications, including Starlink.

The listing also forms part of succession planning. Mukesh Ambani is dividing his roughly USD 170 billion empire into three businesses: Akash on Jio, Isha on retail, and Anant on energy.

Akash's pitch draws on Reliance's history. His grandfather built Reliance from a textiles enterprise into a diversified industrial group. His father, Mukesh Ambani, expanded it into refining, petrochemicals, retail and telecommunications, transforming Jio into one of the largest mobile operators in the world.

Jio's public listing would give investors direct access to the group's digital and telecom businesses, which have so far operated within Reliance Industries. The offering also gives Akash an opportunity to demonstrate that the next generation can sustain the family's record of building businesses while creating value for public shareholders, analysts said.