The price of almost everything you own is set by the small part that changes hands.
That sounds like the kind of thing people say at dinner to seem interesting, so here is the evidence. Jio Platforms, the telecoms and digital arm of Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries, is preparing for what would be India’s largest stock market listing. According to reports on Tuesday, including one in Business Standard, the company is aiming for a valuation of about $114bn and hopes to raise roughly $3.4bn. Read those two numbers again, slowly. A $114bn company is selling $3.4bn of itself.
A Very Large Company, a Very Thin Slice
The draft prospectus, filed in June, offers up to 270 million new shares, which is 2.93% of the company once the sale is done. The books are expected to open in the week of 19 October, with the shares trading before the end of the month. The people briefing reporters asked not to be named and were careful, saying the dates and valuation could still change, so treat all of this as pencil, not ink.
Even in pencil, it is remarkable. Jio has more than 500 million mobile customers, which is more people than live in the United States. Reliance owns about two-thirds of it, and Meta and Google sit on the shareholder register, having bought in during 2020. None of that changes hands. The public gets to bid for a sliver, about three cents in every dollar, and whatever that sliver fetches becomes the official value of the whole thing. At the target price, Jio would be India’s third most valuable listed company, behind only its parent and Bharti Airtel.
The Valuation That Shrank Before Anyone Paid
Here is the part I find most instructive. In January, the talk around this company listing was worth as much as $180bn. By June, analysts were pencilling in something between $110bn and $118bn, and the reported target now sits in the middle of that. Indian share prices have had a soft patch, and new listings have had to price accordingly.
Nothing much happened to Jio in those nine months. It did not lose a third of its customers. Nobody unplugged a mast. The business is, as far as anyone can tell, the same business. What changed is what buyers are willing to pay on the day, the only definition of value that markets recognise. A valuation is an opinion until somebody writes a cheque, and then it is a price.
Your Street Works the Same Way
I think about this whenever a home is sold on my road. One house changes hands, and by the weekend every neighbour has quietly repriced their own, upwards if the news was good and wounded silence if it wasn’t. Nobody has had an offer. Nobody is selling. One transaction at the edge has revalued the whole street.
A share price is that street, every day. The number on the screen is the last deal between the few people who traded, applied to every share that did not. It is why a portfolio can swing by an alarming amount in a week without a single thing changing about the companies inside it. I found that frightening when I started. I find it oddly calming because it tells me the daily number, a quote, and what it is not: a verdict.
Where I Stand
Most investors outside India don’t apply for these shares directly, and I wouldn’t be queueing if I could. Big, famous listings are priced by people who do this for a living and sold to people who do it once, and I know which group I am in. My impatience would love a ticket. My record says otherwise.
What I find more useful is this. Reliance sits among the larger holdings in most broad emerging markets funds, so anyone who owns already has a small claim on Jio, and has had it for years, without filling in a single form. I wrote about that sort of quiet ownership in The Boring Basket That Beat My Best Idea, and it applies neatly here. The exciting door opens in a fortnight; the dull door has been open the whole time.
So I will watch the listing for what it tells me about the appetite for emerging markets, which have been short of good news. If the sliver sells easily at $114bn, that is a signal; if the price drifts down again before the bell, that is one too. BusinessToday has the running details, and I will be reading them from the cheap seats, which is where I do my best thinking.
The Jacqueline Brand — knowledge builds confidence, and confidence builds wealth. This is editorial commentary for information and education only. It is not financial, investment or professional advice, and nothing here is a recommendation to buy or sell any investment. The Jacqueline Brand is not authorised or regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. The value of investments can fall as well as rise, and past performance is not a guide to future returns. Figures were correct at the time of publication. Always do your own research and consider speaking to a regulated adviser. Where cryptoassets are discussed, they are high risk and largely unregulated in the UK, and you could lose all the money you invest. The Collection
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