Jio Financial Services set for listing on Aug 21

Mumbai Jio Financial Services, the demerged financial services unit of Reliance Industries, will be listed on bourses on August 21, according to an exchange notification.

Jio Financial Services Ltd (JFSL) demerged from Reliance last month and is currently listed under a dummy ticker after its price discovery at Rs261.85 but there is no trading happening in the scrip. The listing on BSE and NSE has been scheduled a day before FTSE Russell plans to drop JFSL from its indices. The index services provider said it took the decision as the stock was yet to start trading on bourses. “Trading Members of the Exchange are hereby informed that effective from Monday, August 21, 2023, the equity shares of Jio Financial Services Ltd (formerly known as Reliance Strategic Investments Limited) shall be listed and admitted to dealings on the Exchange in the list of T Group of Securities,” BSE said in a notice. The scrip, which will be abbreviated JIOFIN, will be in the Trade-for-Trade segment for 10 trading days, it said.

Reliance Industries demerged its financial services undertaking into RSIL (Reliance Strategic Investments Ltd), which was renamed as JFSL (Jio Financial Services Ltd). Shareholders got one JFSL share for each Reliance share they held. The shares of JFSL were credited to the Demat account of shareholders last week. JFSL will offer a broad range of financial services solutions and has plans to expand operations into insurance, digital payment and asset management verticals. Last month, it announced a tie-up with Blackrock, the world’s largest asset manager, to float a mutual fund company. In a special price discovery session held on the record date, the stock’s pre-listing price came out to be Rs261.85 per share, valuing the companyw at Rs1.66 lakh crore or about $20.3 billion. At this valuation, it is now the second-largest NBFC in India and the 32nd most valued company, bigger than giants like Tata Steel, Coal India, Indian Oil, and SBI Life. Bajaj Finance is the biggest NBFC with a market cap of Rs4.15 lakh crore and JFSL will be second to it ahead of Bajaj Holdings, SBI Cards, Shriram Finance, Muthoot Finance and Paytm. The spinoff, which will create the fifth-largest financier in terms of capital and compete directly with the likes of Paytm and Bajaj Finance, will complement Reliance’s consumer businesses, which include India’s largest wireless operator with about 428 million users, a top retail chain with over 17,000 stores.

According to brokerage BofA Securities, by separating financial services from the core business, Reliance appears to be keeping arm’s length transactions from other entities, and in theory helping them better to attract strategic or JV partners who are keen only in the financial services arm - like what they did with Reliance Jio or tower InvIT. Separately, FTSE said JFSL will be removed from the FTSE All-World Index and other global indices from August 22. A notice shared by FTSE Russell said that the company had also not announced a firm trading date since its inclusion on July 20 and it is being removed from several FTSE Indices for failing to commence trading after 20 business days. Reliance is the largest private player in the refining, petrochemical, E&P, digital and organised retail sectors in India.