Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani is targeting a 2025 Mumbai listing for his telecoms firm Jio, valued by analysts at more than $100 billion, and plans to launch the IPO of his retail unit much later , two people familiar with the matter told Reuters.

Reliance Industries boss Ambani has not updated his IPO timetable after saying in 2019 that Reliance Jio and Reliance Retail would “move towards” a listing within five years.

In recent years, Ambani, Asia’s richest man, has collectively raised $25 billion for digital, telecommunications and retail companies from KKR, General Atlantic and Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, valuing two companies worth more than $100 billion.

Both sources said Reliance has now confirmed its intention to launch the Reliance Jio IPO in 2025 as it internally believes it has achieved a stable business and revenue stream by becoming the No. 1 telecom player in India with 479 million subscribers.

But the retail IPO is not expected until 2025 as the company first needs to overcome some internal business and operational challenges, the first source said.

Oil conglomerate Reliance Industries did not respond to a request for comment.

Reliance Jio is set to do battle with Elon Musk if it launches its Starlink internet service in India, and Jio, which is also backed by Google and Meta, has partnered with Nvidia to develop AI infrastructure.

The sources said there was no internal decision yet on Reliance Jio’s valuation and bankers were yet to be appointed, but Jefferies in July set the estimated valuation for the IPO of the $112 billion company.

Reliance, however, is aiming for Jio’s 2025 IPO to be India’s largest ever, surpassing Hyundai India’s record IPO of $3.3 billion this year, the former said. source.

The two sources, who declined to be named because the discussions are private, said IPO timelines can still change.

Indian markets have recently hit record highs and as of October, 270 companies had raised $12.58 billion through Indian IPOs this year, eclipsing the $7.42 billion raised in all of 2023.

Reliance’s current idea is not to list the retail unit in the same year as JIO, as it does not want to hit the market with two big IPOs around the same time, the two said sources.

More importantly, according to the first source, there are “operational issues” that Reliance wants to resolve internally within the retail unit, which runs India’s largest grocery network of 3,000 supermarkets, before to launch an IPO.

The company grew “too fast” and ventured into various retail formats, including e-commerce, and some of its physical stores posted losses over the years, leading to leads to a profit per square foot of space that is less than ideal, the person said. .

Reliance Retail’s empire includes fashion, grocery and electronics stores, and the company has moved into e-commerce in recent years to take on Amazon. It is now expanding to faster deliveries to take advantage of the rise of fast commerce – a new shopping trend where products are delivered within 10 minutes.

It reported a 1.1% fall in year-on-year sales between July and September, its first quarterly decline in at least three years, as competition from fast-food start-ups eat into its share of supermarket sales .

Bernstein last year valued the company, which owns toy retailer Hamleys and has partnerships in India with brands including Jimmy Choo, Marks & Spencer and Pret A Manger, at $112 billion.

Jio Platforms, which houses the telecom and digital businesses, is 33% owned by foreign investors after raising $17.84 billion in recent years. Reliance Retail sold around 12% stake to foreign investors during the same period and raised $7.44 billion.