For investors lucky enough to land shares in Jio Platforms’ $3.1 billion initial public offering, trading on the unofficial market is fuelling hopes of a big debut pop.
Billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s digital and telecommunications giant has attracted stellar demand across investor categories ahead of its October 28 market debut.
Investors who got their allocations on Tuesday are now closely watching Jio’s grey-market pricing for clues about how the first day might unfold.
The premium over the IPO price has hovered at about 22 per cent for roughly 10 days, unusually resilient for an offering of this size, according to the ipowatch.in and investorgain.com platforms.
Gray market premiums are unregulated and provide no guarantee of where a stock will actually trade once it hits the exchange. Still, they are widely tracked in India as a barometer of demand and listing-day sentiment.
If the pattern holds into the listing, it would make Jio India’s second-most valuable company after parent Reliance Industries, pushing rival Bharti Airtel into third place, according to a Bloomberg report. That prospect is adding to the excitement around an IPO that’s already rewritten records in India’s capital markets. Jio attracted more than $78 billion in bids and nearly 14 million applications in one of the country’s most anticipated listings.
So far, Jio has been able to defy the usual trend of grey market premiums cooling after an IPO closes, as the initial rush of bidding fades and investors shift their focus to allotments and the eventual listing. After National Stock Exchange of India’s $2.4 billion IPO, the premium gradually eroded from about 15 per cent to 3 per cent in two weeks and the shares ultimately made a relatively muted debut.
The optimism is backed by blockbuster subscription numbers. Jio’s IPO was subscribed more than 22 times.