Jio Platforms IPO announced in RIL AGM; DRHP filing today - 27 cr fresh shares on offer

Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director of Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), said the board of Jio Platforms had approved the draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) earlier in the day and that it would be filed with SEBI on the same day. According to a an exchange filing , Reliance Jio intends to offer 27 crore fresh equity shares with a face value of Rs 10.

Ambani described the development as a deeply emotional moment for him, the Reliance family and millions of shareholders, and said the group’s relationship with its investors was founded on pride, trust, respect and shared growth.

Ambani said the commitment to shared growth had been deeply personal to Dhirubhai Ambani and remained equally important to him. He said Isha, Akash and Anant were heading the Jio IPO process and would lead the next generation of value-creation opportunities.

He added that the proposed listing would show the world that India could build technology companies of global scale, capability and value, and said a brighter future awaited Jio.

Looking back at Jio’s journey, Ambani said the company had started 10 years ago with the aim of removing digital inequality from India. He said that at the time, voice was costly, data was expensive and speeds were poor, and added that Jio made voice free and high-speed data affordable, making digital life possible for every Indian.

Ambani said Jio had helped students learn, small businesses grow, families connect and entrepreneurs dream, while also helping India become the world’s largest data market. According to the RIL chief, Jio was now preparing for its next big mission, centred on artificial intelligence. 

He said India should not remain a consumer of AI created elsewhere and must become a creator, adopter and global leader in the field. Referring to Reliance Intelligence, which he said was announced last year as the group’s newest growth engine, Ambani said the objective was to build a profitable AI infrastructure, platform and services business for consumers, enterprises and governments at scale.

He said the company had set out with a clear vision, identified focus areas and started building partnerships with Google, Meta and NVIDIA, and was now moving into the execution phase. Drawing a parallel with Jio’s expansion in connectivity, Ambani said that while Jio had once promised broadband connectivity to everyone, everywhere, Reliance Intelligence now promised AI to everyone, everywhere, and would deliver on that promise as well.

Ambani said the Jio revolution had been built on the courage, creativity and commitment of thousands of young Indian engineers. He said that before Jio, many believed India could only import technology, but its engineers had proved otherwise by building, testing, deploying and operating technologies at an unprecedented scale. He added that Jio was no longer merely integrating technology, but creating original technology.

He said Reliance Intelligence would offer an even bigger opportunity to young engineers by allowing them to work on problems of national scale and impact and to build and deploy technology for 1.5 billion Indians. Ambani said they would create India-born innovation that the world could adopt.