Jio Platforms, the telecom and digital services business of Reliance Industries, is set for listing on the National Stock Exchange and the Bombay Stock Exchange on October 28, closing one of the most closely watched chapters in Indian stock market history. The company's Rs 30,213 crore initial public offering, which opened on October 21 and closed on October 23, is set to become India's largest-ever public issue, surpassing Hyundai Motor India's Rs 27,900 crore IPO in 2024.
Allotment of shares was expected to be finalised on October 26, clearing the way for the listing.
The scale of investor interest in the issue was extraordinary. According to reports, the IPO was subscribed approximately 22.19 times by the end of the application window on October 23, and a report by news agency PTI said it became the first public offering globally to receive more than one crore applications. The issue comprised 27 crore equity shares through an entirely fresh offering, priced in a band of Rs 1,065 to Rs 1,119 per share.
At the upper end of the band, Jio Platforms commands a valuation of around Rs 10.3 lakh crore, a figure that places it among the most valuable listed companies in the country from its first day of trading.
For Reliance Industries, the IPO is also a valuation discovery exercise. The company currently owns 66.43 per cent of Jio Platforms, while Meta Platforms and Google hold 9.98 per cent and 7.73 per cent respectively. The listing is expected to unlock value for Reliance shareholders by establishing a market-discovered valuation for its telecom and digital businesses, which until now have been valued only as part of the larger group.
Of the IPO proceeds, Rs 27,500 crore is earmarked for debt repayment or prepayment, with the remaining funds to be used for general corporate purposes.
The listing is the latest milestone in a wealth-creation story that began nearly five decades ago, and it is that story which has captured the imagination of retail investors. A Rs 1,000 investment in Reliance Industries' 1977 initial public offering could be worth nearly Rs 52 lakh today, including shares received through the demerger of Jio Financial Services, according to estimates reported in the financial press.
The journey from a modest textile company to India's most valuable business group is, for many investors, the defining retail success story of the Indian market.
Reliance's relationship with individual investors dates back to November 1977, when founder Dhirubhai Ambani raised Rs 2.8 crore through the company's first public offering. The company, then known as Reliance Textiles Industries, issued 28.2 lakh shares at a price of Rs 10 each between November 15 and 17, 1977. The issue was subscribed 7.19 times and attracted around 58,000 investors, a remarkable number for a market that was then in its infancy.
The shares were listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange and the Ahmedabad Stock Exchange on January 23, 1978, and on the first day of trading they were quoted at Rs 17 to Rs 18 each, giving investors a gain of 70 to 80 per cent on listing day itself.
What happened next explains how Rs 1,000 became lakhs. In 1977, that sum bought 100 shares at Rs 10 each. Reliance issued three bonus shares for every five shares held, twice, in 1980 and 1983, taking the count from 100 to 256 shares.
Over the following decades, the company issued bonus shares on four further occasions, in 1997, 2009, 2017 and 2024, each in the ratio of one share for every share held. Those 256 shares thus multiplied to 4,096 shares. Then came the demerger of Jio Financial Services, under which shareholders received one Jio Financial share for every Reliance share held, adding roughly another Rs 4.5 lakh to the overall value.
Put together, the original investment, without adjusting for dividends, stands at nearly Rs 50 lakh from Reliance shares alone, and close to Rs 52 lakh including the Jio Financial shares.
The comparison with gold, the traditional store of wealth for Indian households, makes the scale of the return even clearer. In 1977, Rs 1,000 would have bought 20.58 grams of gold, when the price of 10 grams stood at Rs 486. That gold today would be worth a little over Rs 3 lakh.
The same Rs 1,000 placed in Reliance shares is worth more than Rs 50 lakh, a difference that has become a staple of market lore and a powerful illustration of the rewards of long-term equity investing.
The Jio IPO also arrives at a moment when India's investor base has changed beyond recognition from 1977. The country now has more than 130 million registered stock-market investors, nearly 40 per cent of whom are below the age of 30, according to National Stock Exchange data. For this younger generation, the offering is more than a high-profile corporate listing.
It is a chance to participate directly in the digital business that reshaped their own lives, after Jio transformed India's telecom market a decade ago with inexpensive 4G data services that brought hundreds of millions of people online. The business is now led by Akash Ambani, and the IPO is seen as a test of whether the Reliance name alone can attract investors in a market increasingly focused on valuations, profitability and future growth.
Under Mukesh Ambani, Reliance evolved from a textiles and chemicals business into India's most valuable company, with interests spanning energy, consumer goods and telecommunications. The listing of Jio Platforms, its digital arm, is in many ways the culmination of that transformation. It separates, for the first time, the value of the digital business from the rest of the group, and gives investors a direct stake in the platform that carries India's data traffic.
As trading begins on October 28, attention will turn to how the stock performs in its first days and whether the record subscription translates into a strong listing. But whatever the immediate market verdict, the broader story is already clear.
From 58,000 investors in a Rs 2.8 crore offer in 1977 to more than one crore applications for a Rs 30,213 crore issue in 2026, the arc of Reliance's market journey mirrors the arc of India's own capital markets, from a small club of shareholders to a mass-participation financial system.
(Reporting based on The Economic Times, CNBC-TV18, HDFC Sky and Moneycontrol via Aryan Age.)