Mukesh Ambani Watches From the Audience as His Three Children Run the Jio Listing Ceremony

The story has moved from the share sale to the stage: at the National Stock Exchange in Mumbai today, Oct. 28, the Ambani family rang the listing bell for Jio Platforms, and the three Ambani children did the talking.

Mukesh Ambani, 69, sat in the audience beside his wife, Nita. He was seen wiping away tears more than once as Isha, Akash and Anant spoke. Reuters described him as visibly emotional and in tears.

A handoff, in public

Akash Ambani, who runs Jio, touched his parents' feet before walking to the stage, a traditional gesture of respect. All three siblings gave speeches.

Isha Ambani, an executive director of Reliance Retail Ventures, recalled a family dinner a few evenings earlier. "My father, Shri Mukesh Ambani, was remembering his days in 1977. He was 20 years old, working on Reliance's first public offering. My grandfather, Shri Dhirubhai Ambani, had decided to take Reliance to the people," she said.

She also paid tribute to her twin brother. "Akash, for the last 13 years on this journey, I don't think you've come home a single night before midnight," she said.

Anant Ambani, an executive director of Reliance Industries, opened with "gratitude" and framed the day in religious terms. "The bell at the exchange will ring for me like a temple bell because for me business is pooja and every pooja ends with prasad," he said. "Prasad is always shared. Today, Jio is shared with India."

He added that he, Isha and Akash stand "as three bodies but one soul."

Akash Ambani, speaking at the NSE ceremony, called the listing "not a finish line but a start line" and promised to take the company to greater heights and grow investor wealth.

The optics carry weight. Reuters reports that Mukesh Ambani has spent years shaping a succession plan meant to avoid a repeat of the public feud with his younger brother Anil that followed their father's death in 2002 without a will.

The numbers Isha cited

Isha Ambani said Jio "earned about USD 15.5 billion in revenue and about USD 8 billion in real earnings" this year, and called that something "very few companies anywhere in the world have done," in only 10 years. Those are her figures from the stage.

The market numbers are firmer. Jio opened at Rs 1,358 against a Rs 1,119 issue price, a premium of about 21%, and touched a high of Rs 1,375, about 23% above the offer price. The Rs 30,213 crore offering was subscribed 22.19 times and was India's largest IPO to date.

Reuters put Jio's market value at about $131.5 billion at the open. That overtook Bharti Airtel and HDFC Bank and made Jio India's second-largest listed company by that measure. Only Reliance Industries, its parent, is bigger. Jio's telecom business serves more than 530 million customers, and by single-country subscribers Reuters says only China Mobile is larger.

Meta Platforms and Alphabet's Google are backers.

What the brokerages flagged

Not everyone was in a celebratory mood about what comes next. Several brokerages see potential upside in the stock, but Reuters reports they flagged competition, heavy capital spending, and changes in India's telecom rules covering spectrum, licensing and fees.

Aishvarya Dadheech, founder of Fident Asset Management, separated the two prices: "The IPO price offered a valuation entry point; the listing price reflects a much greater degree of optimism."

Kranthi Bathini, equity strategist at WealthMills Securities, said Jio had a strong debut despite geopolitical issues and turbulent markets. "The revenues and earnings will lead the stock here onwards," he said.

Rediff described the rally as a bright spot for investors in the wake of an otherwise harsh equity selloff.

Reliance's bigger plan

Reuters describes the listing, the first for the Reliance conglomerate in two decades, as a step in Ambani's plan to turn Reliance from an oil-and-chemicals business into an "everything company" spanning consumer products and technology.

Reliance took out front-page ads in major Indian newspapers today reading "Thank you, India." An internal memo seen by Reuters says the company is hosting an employee celebration at its large office near Mumbai, with jam sessions and other performances.

India has been the world's busiest IPO market this year by deal count, with 246 listings so far, according to LSEG data cited by Reuters. By money raised it ranks fourth at $13.5 billion, behind the US, mainland China and Hong Kong, before Jio's record offering is added in.

What comes next

The ceremony settled the symbolism. It did not settle the valuation.

A stock priced about 21% above its offer on day one now has to grow into that price while Jio funds network spending and waits on regulators' decisions on spectrum, licensing and fees. The brokerages that see upside have named those as the variables to watch.