EXCLUSIVE-Reliance Jio woos investors to sell 8% of individual stakes in IPO, sources say

By Kane Wu, Aditya Kalra and Vibhuti Sharma

HONG KONG/NEW DELHI, March 25 (Reuters) - Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Jio Platforms has held talks with 13 marquee foreign investors to sell down 8% of individual stakes in an upcoming Mumbai listing of the telecoms-to-AI company, sources familiar with the matter said.

Ambani's ​Jio Platforms, which houses the world's second-largest telecom company by users after China Mobile 600941.SS, is set to file for approval of its IPO in Mumbai as early as this week.

Big investors on the list include Meta, with a stake of 9.99%, and Google, with 7.73%, followed by Vista Equity Partners and KKR. Three Gulf sovereign funds, the Public Investment Fund, Mubadala and Abu Dhabi Investment Authority are also investors.

The stake sale "would be around 8% for everyone," said one of the two sources involved in the IPO process, who spoke on condition of anonymity as the discussions were confidential.

Reliance and the investors did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.

Reuters calculations show each investors' sale of 8% of their holdings effectively implies about 2.5% of Reliance Jio's total outstanding shares offered in the listing, as it has planned.

Meta selling 8% of its 9.99% holding would mean a 0.8% stake sale by the U.S. tech giant, for example.

While the talks have focused on each investor selling 8% of its holding, the final numbers could still change.