Inside Project Jupiter: The Year-Long Plan Behind Jio's Record IPO

Reliance Industries had been quietly preparing for Jio Platforms' stock market debut for close to a year before Mukesh Ambani made the announcement public. He revealed the listing plan at the company's Annual General Meeting on June 19, 2026. The internal effort behind this preparation was codenamed Project Jupiter, a name chosen to reflect the scale and ambition of the exercise, according to a report by news agency Bloomberg.

A small group of senior executives steered the project, including Reliance's Chief Financial Officer V Srikanth, executive KR Raja and Jio's Anshuman Thakur, the report said.

Secrecy was maintained through several measures. Draft prospectuses and internal memorandums were largely shared on paper rather than electronically. Email use was minimised to limit digital trails, and meetings were kept to a small group of senior officials, as per the news agency.

Kotak Mahindra Capital and Morgan Stanley were the first investment banks involved, joining in October 2025 as lead advisers. Formal appointments for these banks came only around December 2025, allowing preparatory work to continue even before contracts were finalised, the report said.

By the time the draft red herring prospectus reached the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) on June 19, 2026, the advisory syndicate had expanded to 19 investment banks.

Three Challenges RIL Navigated

The report points to three parallel challenges that Reliance had to manage: pushing regulators to relax IPO norms, getting major shareholders on board with selling stock and keeping the entire plan under wraps until launch.

On the regulatory side, the Sebi lowered its minimum public float requirement in September 2025. For companies valued above ₹5 trillion, the threshold dropped from 5% to 2.5%. The central government issued the formal notification for this change only in March 2026, the report said.

Convincing investors took longer. KKR, Meta and Alphabet, among Jio's existing shareholders, eventually agreed to dilute roughly 8% of their holdings on a pro-rata basis. This allowed the company to satisfy public float norms without significantly altering the proportional ownership structure among existing investors, according to Bloomberg.

A Late Change in Deal Structure

The most significant shift during the process involved how the IPO itself was structured. Reliance's initial plan called for an offer for sale, through which existing shareholders would sell about 2.8% of Jio. Under this approach, proceeds would have gone to those selling shareholders, sending a large share of the funds to foreign investors rather than keeping the money within the company.

This plan ran into resistance. Some investors were uneasy about the valuation given soft market conditions and the effect of a depreciating rupee on their returns in dollar terms, the report said. Reliance then opted for an all-primary issuance instead, under which the company itself sells fresh shares. This restructuring means the entire amount being raised, estimated at around ₹37,700 crore or roughly $4 billion, stays within Jio and within India.

As a result of the entirely fresh issue of shares, Reliance Industries, which owns 66.43% of Jio Platforms, along with investors such as Meta, Google, KKR, Mubadala, Vista Equity Partners and Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, will continue holding their stakes after the listing, subject to dilution from the creation of new shares.

The company has proposed reserving up to 50% of the issue for qualified institutional buyers, while at least 35% will go to retail investors. The allocation for Reliance Industries shareholders and employees has not yet been disclosed.

Where the Proceeds Will Go

According to the DRHP, the bulk of the proceeds, around ₹27,500 crore, will go toward repaying or prepaying existing borrowings, either fully or partially. Any remaining funds will be used for general corporate purposes. The filing notes that the final deployment may vary depending on market conditions, financing arrangements, interest rates, exchange rate movements and business requirements, though debt reduction remains the primary objective.

This focus on balance sheet strengthening sets the issue apart from typical growth capital raises. Rather than funding acquisitions or aggressive expansion, the company is prioritising lower debt levels, which could reduce interest costs and improve financial flexibility as Jio continues to invest in newer areas such as cloud infrastructure, AI and satellite communications.

Why Reliance Wants Jio Listed

The listing also serves a broader strategic purpose. Investors seeking exposure to Jio have so far had to buy Reliance Industries shares, where the telecom and digital businesses sit alongside oil-to-chemicals, retail, new energy and other operations. A separate listing would allow investors to assign an independent valuation to Jio Platforms and provide greater clarity on its financial performance.

Ambani described the proposed listing as an emotional milestone for the group. "This is a deeply emotional moment for me, for the entire Reliance Family, and millions of its shareholders," he said at the annual general meeting. "The proposed listing of Jio will demonstrate to the world that India can build technology companies of global scale, global capability, and global value."

Jio's business has expanded considerably since its 2016 launch. Its consumer platform includes mobile services, JioFiber broadband, JioAirFiber fixed wireless access and internet-enabled devices such as JioBharat. As of FY26, the company served more than 524 million subscribers, including 268.5 million 5G users.

The company has also built an enterprise-focused business spanning cloud infrastructure, Internet of Things solutions, digital collaboration platforms and enterprise networking services, with partnerships extending to firms including Google, Meta and Nvidia. Reliance has outlined plans to build artificial intelligence infrastructure and services, while media reports suggest Jio is seeking regulatory approval for a low-Earth orbit satellite constellation of around 1,600 satellites.

Akash Ambani, Chairman of Reliance Jio Infocomm, said the company aims to extend connectivity to regions beyond the reach of traditional networks. "Jio connected India on the ground, now we must connect from the skies," Akash had said.

What Investors are Watching

Jio enters the public market with strong operating numbers. For the March quarter of FY26, the company reported operating revenue of ₹44,928 crore, up 13% year on year, while net profit rose 13% to ₹7,935 crore. EBITDA increased 18%, with margins expanding by 230 basis points.

Average revenue per user improved to ₹214, supported by tariff hikes and higher usage, while monthly data consumption reached 42.3 GB per user, with overall data traffic rising around 35% from a year earlier.

Santosh Meena, Head of Research at Swastika Investmart, earlier told Outlook Business that Jio's subscriber base, 5G adoption and expanding digital and AI capabilities support expectations of a premium valuation, with market estimates currently in the ₹10 to 12 lakh crore range.

Riyank Arora, Associate Vice President for HNI and Derivatives at Hedged.in had said that Jio's scale and market leadership could make the offering one of the most closely watched in recent years. "Given Jio's strong market leadership, extensive subscriber base, and expanding digital footprint, the issue is likely to attract significant investor interest across both institutional and retail segments," he previously told Outlook Business.

Analysts note that investors will also need to weigh valuation, competitive dynamics in the telecom sector and Jio's ability to successfully scale its newer technology businesses alongside its core connectivity operations.