BofA gives Ambani’s Jio Platforms a $100 billion-plus valuation

Bank of America has pinned a $107 billion valuation tag on Mukesh Ambani’s Jio Platforms, valuing the Indian telecoms and digital conglomerate 64.6% higher than the $65 billion at which it attracted the likes of Meta, Google and other technology giants in a mammoth fundraising in 2020.

The valuation reassessment comes at a time when Reliance is expected to undertake 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 $100 billion valuation.

At its annual general meeting in 2019, Reliance Industries stated its plan for IPO of both the businesses in the next five years. The firm listed its financial services arm Jio Financial last year.

In August, Ambani said he will lead Reliance Industries for five more years and mentor his children to take the $211 billion Indian oil-to-telecom giant to greater heights of growth and value in the decades ahead. As part of the succession plan, Reliance Industries appointed Ambani’s children — Isha, Akash and Anant — as non-executive directors to the board.

Bank of America said in a note to clients that it expects Jio Platforms, which dominates the Indian telecom market, to continue to add subscribers this year and make deeper inroads with the advanced feature phone JioBharat and wireless broadband device JioAirFiber. The investment bank also expects the Indian telecom industry to hike tariffs in the second half of the year, it said.

“On enterprise business we see three areas where Jio Platforms could capitalize on: government contracts, SMEs and corporates (by offering VAS),” BofA added.