Reliance's telecom arm Jio has fast-tracked plans for its initial public offering (IPO) as the government has eased norms for public listing for large companies.
India's largest telecom company may file for an IPO as early as March with December quarter financials, according to a report by Bloomberg.
The company has already appointed 17 bankers to manage the listing process.
Morgan Stanley, HSBC Holdings, JPMorgan, Citigroup, and Goldman Sachs are among the nine global banks appointed for advisory roles, Bloomberg reported.
Domestic advisors include Kotak Mahindra Capital, Axis Capital, JM Financial, SBI Capital Markets, among others.
Jio IPO will be one of the biggest public listings for the Indian stock market and the first in two decades for Reliance.
The company has revived its IPO plan after the securities markets regulator Sebi (Securities and Exchange Board of India) recently eased public shareholding requirements for big companies.
This has paved the way for the public listings of companies like Jio and stock exchange NSE.
In a notification last week, the Union Ministry of Finance notified amendments in the Securities Contracts (Regulation) Rules that regulate the listing and public shareholding norms based on the market capitalisation of the companies.
The amendments follow the proposals made by the securities markets regulator Sebi last year. The Sebi proposal suggested a tiered approach based on the valuation of the company.
After the amendments, companies with post-IPO market valuations of more than Rs 5 lakh crore (about $57 billion) will now be allowed to list with an initial public float of just 2.5 percent of their paid-up capital.
Such firms will now be required to gradually increase their public shareholding over time, reaching 15 percent within five years and the mandatory 25 percent within ten years.
Earlier, companies with post-IPO market valuations of over Rs 1 lakh crore were required to list with an initial public float of at least 5 percent.
Due to this requirement, large IPOs had to sell large volumes of shares, which could impact liquidity in the market.
Hence, companies like Jio and NSE had deferred their public listing to wait for the norms to change.
