The week of June 15, 2026 may well be remembered as the moment India's primary market grew up. Two of the most anticipated, most delayed, most discussed public offerings in Indian financial history are both expected to file their draft prospectuses with SEBI simultaneously — kicking off a listing process that, if successful, could raise a combined $6 billion and reshape how the world thinks about Indian capital markets.
Jio Platforms. National Stock Exchange of India. Two companies so large, so strategically important, and so long-awaited that their simultaneous arrival in the primary market is being called the IPO double dhamaka that the Sensex has been building toward for years.
JIO PLATFORMS: THE $4 BILLION FILING MUKESH AMBANI HAS BEEN PROMISING FOR SEVEN YEARS
In 2019, Mukesh Ambani told shareholders he planned to list Jio within five years. That deadline passed. At the 48th AGM in August 2025, he set a new one: H1 2026. That deadline was also missed — delayed, according to sources, by the geopolitical uncertainty triggered by the West Asia conflict and its effect on global investor sentiment.
Now, just days before the 49th AGM on June 19, sources indicate Jio Platforms could file its DRHP within hours. The filing would make the June AGM the most consequential annual meeting in Reliance Industries' history — with Ambani able to tell shareholders not that the listing is coming, but that the papers are already with SEBI.
The structure has evolved significantly from earlier plans. The proposed IPO is expected to be a 100% fresh issue after Reliance switched from an offer-for-sale structure in March 2026 — meaning proceeds would go directly into Jio's business for debt repayment and capital expenditure on AI infrastructure and network expansion.
The valuation range is the number every analyst wants to pin down. Elara Capital has valued Jio at ₹12–13 lakh crore based on 13x FY28E EV/EBITDA. Jefferies pegged it at $180 billion. Banker pitches have suggested ₹15–20 lakh crore. The actual price band will only be confirmed when the DRHP is public — but at even the most conservative estimates, Jio would list as one of the five most valuable companies on Indian exchanges.
A regulatory change also cleared the path — allowing companies valued above ₹5 lakh crore to list with a 2.5% public float instead of the earlier 10% minimum, making the dilution manageable at such an extraordinary valuation. At 2.5%, the IPO raises approximately $4–4.5 billion — comfortably surpassing Hyundai Motor India's $3.3 billion listing in 2024 as India's largest-ever IPO.
The listing is expected to put a transparent public market value on Reliance's digital assets for the first time. Some reports have valued Jio at ₹3 lakh crore to ₹5 lakh crore in sum-of-parts models, while a public listing confirmation of more than $130 billion — over ₹11 lakh crore — could lead to a re-rating of Reliance Industries itself.
Jio's business has expanded dramatically since the first listing promise. From a telecom operator with 500 million subscribers, it has evolved into a digital conglomerate spanning 5G networks, JioHotstar with 300 million paying subscribers, JioCloud, JioFinance, enterprise services, and an AI infrastructure buildout. The company reported FY26 revenue and EBITDA growth of 10% and 8% year-on-year respectively — solid but not spectacular numbers that the listing will need to be priced against carefully.
17 investment banks including Goldman Sachs, Jefferies, Citi, and domestic heavyweights have been assembled for the process — the largest banker consortium for any Indian IPO in history.
NSE: THE 10-YEAR REGULATORY ODYSSEY THAT IS FINALLY ENDING
The NSE story is in many ways more dramatic than Jio's — because it involves a regulatory battle, a co-location scandal, a ₹643 crore SEBI penalty, multiple rejected filings, and a decade of waiting by shareholders who have watched the exchange grow into the world's largest derivatives marketplace while being unable to list it publicly.
NSE first filed its DRHP in December 2016. SEBI returned it in 2019 due to governance concerns around the co-location scandal. Since then, the exchange has spent seven years rebuilding its compliance architecture, paying its penalties, resolving outstanding disputes, and waiting for the regulator to clear it. SEBI granted the exchange a formal No-Objection Certificate on February 6, 2026, removing the last significant regulatory barrier that had stalled listing plans since 2016.
The NSE IPO is structured entirely as an Offer for Sale. No fresh equity capital will be raised by the exchange itself; the proceeds will flow entirely to selling shareholders who are diluting between 4 and 4.5% of the exchange's total equity capital. The issue size is expected to fall in the range of ₹22,000 crore to ₹23,000 crore — placing it among the largest public offerings ever mounted on Indian soil. At that size, the implied market valuation of the exchange ranges between ₹4.7 lakh crore and ₹6 lakh crore.
The business being listed needs no marketing. NSE commands a near-total share across India's two most traded asset classes. In the derivatives segment, the exchange holds between 93 and 98% market share by volume, making it the world's largest derivatives exchange on that metric. In cash equities, its share runs between 85 and 90%. Every equity transaction, every futures and options contract, every data feed sold to a terminal generates revenue for the exchange.
The selling shareholders are a who's who of Indian and global institutional finance. The list includes Life Insurance Corporation, SBI, State Bank of India, IDBI Bank, Tiger Global, Aranda Investments (the Temasek affiliate), and SAIF Partners — each looking to monetise stakes held through a decade of regulatory uncertainty. 20 Book Running Lead Managers have been appointed including Kotak Mahindra Capital, JM Financial, Axis Capital, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, HSBC, Citi, ICICI Securities, and SBI Capital Markets.
NSE declared a ₹35 per share final dividend for FY26 — a signal to shareholders that the exchange is financially robust and cash-generative enough to reward them even before the IPO proceeds arrive.
The valuation debate is nuanced. BSE — NSE's listed smaller rival — currently trades at a market cap of approximately ₹65,000–70,000 crore. NSE, as the dominant franchise, should command a significant premium. The ₹4.7–6 lakh crore range implies a price-to-earnings multiple that analysts debate — with some arguing NSE's near-monopoly position justifies a premium to global exchange peers and others suggesting the derivatives-heavy revenue mix introduces regulatory and market structure risk.
WHY SIMULTANEOUS FILING MATTERS
The fact that both companies are expected to file in the same week — and potentially the same few days — is not coincidence. It is strategic.
Both companies need a favourable market environment for successful listings. India's equity markets have rebounded significantly after earlier volatility. The SpaceX IPO's global success has reinforced appetite for large-scale technology and infrastructure listings. Geopolitical tensions in West Asia, while not resolved, have stabilised enough for global investors to re-engage with Indian primary markets.
Filing simultaneously also creates a competitive dynamic that benefits both. The Jio filing creates news flow and investor excitement that makes the NSE filing land in an attentive market. The NSE filing — with its domestic institutional depth and the financial sector's enthusiasm — creates a second wave of engagement that sustains momentum for Jio's roadshow.
For India's primary market, the timing could not be better calibrated. India ranked as the world's second-largest primary equity issuance market in 2025, raising $21.6 billion. A successful Jio and NSE listing in H2 2026 — together potentially raising ₹46,000–50,000 crore — would make 2026 the most consequential year in India's IPO history.
THE RISKS: WHAT COULD STILL GO WRONG
The filing is not the listing. SEBI review typically takes 30–75 days. The price band has not been set. The OFS structure for NSE means selling shareholder preferences need to align. Jio's all-fresh issue structure means the company's internal capital deployment plans need to be credibly articulated in the prospectus to attract institutional appetite at the target valuation.
Market conditions remain the wild card. A deterioration in global equity markets, an escalation of West Asia tensions, or a domestic market correction could push timelines out again. Both companies have experienced this before — the filings that did not proceed, the bankers who were hired and stood down, the AGM speeches that promised and then deferred.
But for the first time in years, the regulatory hurdles are genuinely cleared for both. NSE has its SEBI NOC. Jio has resolved the structural questions around the minimum public float and the fresh issue versus OFS debate. The bankers are assembled. The law firms are engaged.
The double dhamaka is no longer a promise. The DRHP paperwork is imminent. What has been India's most anticipated IPO story for a decade is, finally, becoming a filing date.
