Despite recording a reduced valuation, JFS remains the third-largest non-banking financial company in India.
Minutes after listing on stock exchanges on Monday, Jio Financial Services (JFS) has fallen limit-down. That is even as investors remain unsure about the expanse of the business cashed out of the stock.
JFS, which was recently spun off of billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries, had its stock price set at 262 Indian rupees (approximately $3.15) per share. The discovery session of July held JFS’ valuation to be 1.7 trillion Indian rupees ($20.5 billion).
The share price, however, soon fell 5% – the most a stock can fall in a session. And that was despite that JFS started trading with over 73 million shares exchanging hands. The stocks are now valued at about 1.58 trillion Indian rupees ($19 billion).
Investors Seek Clarity on JFS
From all indications, it appears that investors are still unclear about the JFS share. Although Reliance Industries had earlier approved 6.35 billion JFS shares to be listed, there is yet an air of uncertainty around how much of a stake that represents in the company.
So, the investors will be expecting Ambani to throw more light on JFS during the Reliance annual general meeting that’s billed to take place on August 28.
So far, Reliance has only said so much about Jio Financial Services and what the company intends to offer as its products and services. However, according to non-executive chairman KV Kamath, JFS might be aiming to become a “full-service financial services player”.
Besides, Reuters reported in July that Jio Financial had partnered with BlackRock to launch an asset management platform for consumers in India. Although details of the full business plans have not been revealed, reports have it that both partners each committed $150 million to the joint venture. And as Reliance suggests in a filing, JFS’ services may also include consumer and merchant lending, payments platform, insurance broking, AMC & other NLFs.
Despite recording a reduced valuation, JFS remains the third-largest non-banking financial company in India. It comes in behind Bajaj Finance and Bajaj Finserv with 4.15 trillion rupees and 2.32 trillion rupees valuations respectively.
next