The Indian equities market has been under pressure witnessing a prolonged sell-off by foreign portfolio investors amid the west Asia crisis. The sell-off is one of the key reasons for rupee depreciation. Towards the end of last month, D-Street had much to cheer about, with announcements of biggest and most anticipated initial public offerings by Jio Platforms and India’s biggest bourse NSE.
“Jio’s proposed listing will show the world that India can build technology companies of global scale, capability and value. I assure you and all potential new investors that Jio’s future is even brighter,” said Mukesh Ambani, CMD, Reliance Industries at the company’s annual general meeting.
Jio has completed 10 years and surpassed a customer base of 52.4 crore with about 26.8 crore 5G users, the largest for any telecom operator operating in a single country outside of China. It had a revenue of Rs 1.46 lakh crore and net profit of Rs 30,000 crore in FY26.
Jio Platforms proposes to issue 27 crore fresh equity shares in the IPO, as per the Draft Red Herring Prospectus (DRHP) filed. Reliance owns 66.43 per cent in Jio. Other key investors include Meta, Google and a few private equity funds. Jio plans to use the IPO proceeds mainly to repay debt of Rs 27,500 crore of Reliance Jio Infocomm. The proposed repayment will position Jio favourably for continued investment in its strategic priorities, including 5G network densification and expansion, fixed broadband penetration, AI and cloud services, enterprise digital services and international technology partnerships.
After many delays, NSE has also filed a DRHP for its initial public offering. Under the proposed offer, the selling shareholders plan to offer up to 148,905,525 equity shares. Major sellers in the offer include State Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, New India Assurance Company and General Insurance Corporation of India, among others. Apart from domestic sellers, major foreign institutions include Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, MS Strategic (Mauritius) Ltd. and Temasek, among others.
NSE is the largest stock exchange in India in terms of total turnover in the cash market and equity derivatives. As of 31 March 2026, it had 253.66 million registered investor accounts, 1325 trading members, 129.09 million unique registered investors and 2978 listed entities with a market capitalisation of listed entities of Rs 411.25 trillion. It ranks among the top three leading listed stock exchange groups globally in terms of return on average equity.
Both IPOs, if they come through, are expected to surpass Hyundai Motor India’s Rs 27,870 crore offering in 2024, which was the largest in India’s history. Will these mega IPOs, which are likely to garner huge investor interest, be a game-changer for D-Street and reverse the fortunes? One has to wait and watch.
