Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani is aiming for a 2025 Mumbai listing for his telecom business Jio, valued by analysts at over $100 billion, and plans to launch his Reliance Retail’s initial public offering much later, Reuters reported, quoting sources.
The Reliance conglomerate boss has not updated his IPO timelines after saying in 2019 that Reliance Jio and Reliance Retail would “move towards” a listing within five years.
In recent years, Mr Ambani, Asia's richest man, raised $25 billion collectively for digital, telecom and retail businesses, from the likes of KKR, General Atlantic and Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, valuing both ventures at above $100 billion.
Mr Ambani is the world's 17th richest person with a net worth of $100 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
The two sources said Reliance has now firmed up plans to launch the Reliance Jio IPO in 2025 as it believes it has achieved a stable business and revenue stream in becoming India's No 1 telecom player with 479 million subscribers.
But the retail business IPO is not expected until after 2025 as the company first needs to address some internal business and operational challenges, said the first source.
The sources said there was no internal decision yet on the valuation of Reliance Jio and bankers haven't yet been appointed, but Jefferies in July pegged the company's estimated IPO valuation at $112 billion.
Reliance, however, aims for the 2025 Jio IPO to be India's biggest ever, overtaking Hyundai India's record $3.3 billion listing this year, said the first source. Both sources said the IPO timelines can still change.
Indian markets recently scaled record highs and by October, 270 companies had raised $12.58 billion from Indian IPOs this year, eclipsing the $7.42 billion raised in all of 2023.
Reliance's current thinking is to not list the retail unit in the same year as Jio, as it doesn't want to hit the market with two big IPOs around the same time, said both sources.
More critically, the first source said, there are "operational issues" Reliance internally wants to fix at the retail unit, which runs India's biggest grocery store network of 3,000 supermarkets, before going for an IPO.
The company has grown "too fast" and ventured into various retail formats, including e-commerce, and some of its brick-and-mortar stores have clocked losses over the years, leading to less-than-ideal earnings per square feet of space, said the source.
Reliance Retail's empire includes fashion, grocery and electronic stores, and it has ventured into e-commerce in recent years to take on Amazon. It is now expanding into faster deliveries to tap the boom in quick commerce.
It reported a 1.1 per cent year-on-year decline in July-September sales, its first quarterly sales fall in at least three years, as competition from quick commerce start-ups is seen eating into its share of supermarket sales.
Bernstein last year valued the business, which owns toy retailer Hamleys and has forged partnerships in India with brands such as Jimmy Choo, Marks & Spencer and Pret A Manger, at $112 billion.
Jio Platforms, which houses the telecom and digital businesses, is 33 per cent owned by foreign investors after raising $17.84 billion in recent years.
Reliance Retail sold a stake of about 12 per cent to foreign investors over the same period and raised $7.44 billion.
Gautam Adani
Billionaire Gautam Adani’s power generation unit is stepping up pressure on Bangladesh as it seeks to recover more than $850 million of unpaid electricity bills, Bloomberg reported quoting sources.
Adani Power reduced its supply to Bangladesh by half and may cut the nation off entirely from November 7, the sources said.
Adani Power is asking the neighbouring nation’s power agency to arrange a letter of credit or repay the money, one source said.
Mr Adani has a personal fortune worth $97.2 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
A pullback by Adani Power, which has been providing electricity to India’s neighbour from its coal-fired plant in the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand, raises the risk of further blackouts in a country grappling with a financial and energy crisis after weeks of protests overthrew Sheikh Hasina’s government earlier this year. It also adds to headwinds faced by the interim government, led by Muhammad Yunus, which is already tackling billions of dollars in arrears.
Bangladesh’s current administration is expediting payments to Adani Power, Shafiqul Alam, a government spokesman, told reporters in Dhaka on November 4.
The country is hoping to “repay about $700 million to Adani as soon as possible”, Mr Alam said, adding that arrears were mostly a legacy from the previous administration.
The delayed payments underscore the financial and geopolitical risks facing the Indian conglomerate, led by Asia’s second-richest person, as it steadily expands its global footprint across Israel, Kenya, Tanzania, Sri Lanka and Bhutan besides Bangladesh.
Adani Power’s move exacerbates the electricity deficit in the country of about 174 million people. Bangladesh is facing an overall daily shortfall of about 1,500 megawatts, according to government data.
The developments signal an escalation by the ports-to-power conglomerate after it warned Bangladesh Power Development Board in an October 28 letter from Adani Power seen by Bloomberg News.
The company will start “suspending power supply” if it did not receive a letter of credit or its dues worth $846 million remain unpaid by October 31, according to the letter.
“We have been facing tremendous difficulties in managing working capital for making payments to coal suppliers” and other vendors due to outstanding payments and “non-availability” of a letter of credit, Adani Power said in this communication. “Also, our lenders have withdrawn the working capital support.”
Bangladesh Bank’s Governor Ahsan H. Mansur told Bloomberg News in August that there was a risk of losing power supply if Adani Group wasn’t paid its dues.
Bill Gates
TerraPower, the nuclear energy company backed by billionaire Bill Gates, has agreed to invest in construction of a uranium enrichment plant in South Africa to support its own US reactor project.
The company also agreed to buy enriched uranium from the facility being built by ASP Isotopes to help fuel its future reactor in Wyoming, the company said on October 30. Chief executive Chris Levesque declined to provide financial terms of the deal.
TerraPower’s Natrium project is expected to begin generating electricity in 2030 and will require a steady supply of a new type of nuclear fuel. Russia currently accounts for much of the global supply, but the US imposed sanctions on the nation in August to block uranium fuel imports.
The ASP deal is the latest in a string of agreements aimed at developing a supply chain elsewhere. The enriched uranium from ASP’s facility will be turned into reactor fuel at a site in North Carolina.
“We’re solving a big problem,” Mr Levesque said. “We need to be making these investments now if we’re going to supply electricity in the early 2030s.”
Mr Gates is the world's sixth richest person with a net worth of $159 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Compiled from Bloomberg and Reuters
