The Rs 30,213 crore initial public offering of Jio Platforms opened for subscription on Wednesday, October 21, 2026, and had been subscribed 1.40 times by 12:10 p.m., according to HDFC Sky. Bids for 27.66 crore shares had been received against 19.75 crore on offer. Qualified institutional buyers, excluding anchors, had bid 4.10 times their quota, while non-institutional investors were at 0.51 times, retail investors at 0.42 times, employees at 0.90 times and shareholders at 0.75 times. The price band is Rs 1,065 to Rs 1,119 per share, the lot size is 12 shares, and the minimum investment at the upper band is Rs 13,428. The issue closes on October 23.
The case that the offer is in strong demand rests on the institutional response. The institutional portion was oversubscribed more than four times within hours, and the whole issue had already crossed 1.4 times by midday, with two more days of bidding still to come. The issue is a fresh issue of 27 crore shares, so the money raised goes to the company and not to selling shareholders. Half of the offer is reserved for institutions, 35 percent for retail investors and 15 percent for non-institutional investors, and Kotak Mahindra Capital is the lead manager. With allotment on October 26 and listing on October 28 on the NSE and BSE, the timetable is short, and the early numbers suggest the book will be covered comfortably.
The case for caution is that the people who are supposed to be the broadest base of the issue had hardly started. Retail investors had subscribed only 0.42 times and the large non-institutional category 0.42 times, which means less than half of the shares reserved for them had been bid for after the first half of the day. The minimum bid of Rs 13,428 is modest, but the price band values the company at roughly Rs 10.3 lakh crore after the issue, according to HDFC Sky, a valuation that leaves little room for disappointment on listing. A figure of 1.40 times after one session also says little about the final outcome, because the quota that matters for the listing price will be known only when the issue closes on Friday.
The offer matters beyond the company because it is the largest in the history of Indian public markets and will draw money from mutual funds, insurers and households at the same time. Domestic funds and insurers took a large share of the anchor book, and a strong listing would encourage other large companies to consider the market, while a weak one would do the opposite. For individual investors, the main questions are how much to bid at a valuation of this size and whether to hold after October 28. For the exchanges and regulators, the settlement of a record issue is a test of the system. Kotak Mahindra Capital is the lead manager and Kfin Technologies the registrar, and refunds will be credited on October 27, a day before the shares list.
Jio Platforms has had a strong first morning, led by institutions. The last two days of bidding will show whether households follow.
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