Bank of America has pegged a $107 billion valuation mark on Mukesh Ambani’s Jio platforms, valuing the Indian telecom and digital conglomerate 64.6% higher than the $65 billion it attracted the likes of Meta, Google and other tech giants in a massive fundraising in Year 2020…
The valuation reassessment comes at a time when Reliance is expected to conduct initial public offerings for both Jio Platforms and Reliance Retail. In 2020, Jio Platforms raised over $20 billion from a series of investments by companies like Meta, Google, Silver Lake, Vista Equity Partners and others. Reliance Retail, which raised about $7 billion in 2020, recently raised about $1.85 billion at a $100 billion valuation.
At its annual general meeting in 2019, Reliance Industries announced its plan to go public for both companies in the next five years. The company listed its financial services arm Jio Financial last year.
In August, Ambani said he would lead Reliance Industries for another five years and guide his children to take the $211 billion Indian oil-to-telecom giant to greater levels of growth and value in the coming decades. As part of the succession plan, Reliance Industries has appointed Ambani’s sons – Isha, Akash and Anant – as non-executive directors on the board.
Bank of America said in a note to clients that it expects Jio Platforms, which dominates the Indian telecom market, to continue adding subscribers this year and make deeper inroads with its advanced feature phone JioBharat and wireless broadband device Jio AirFiber. The investment bank also expects the Indian telecom industry to hike tariffs in the second half of the year.
“In terms of enterprise business, we see three areas where Jio Platforms can benefit: government contracts, SMEs and enterprises (by providing value-added services),” Bank of America added.