By Aditya Kalra and Vibhuti Sharma

MUMBAI, May 11 (Reuters) – Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio Platforms has shifted its planned Mumbai IPO to a pure fundraising exercise, abandoning earlier plans that would have allowed major foreign investors to ​sell some of their shares, two sources said on Monday.

Jio Platforms, which owns ‌the world’s second-largest telecom company by users after China Mobile, counts Meta, Alphabet’s Google and Vista Equity Partners among its investors. Its initial public offering has been long-awaited and could be India’s largest ever.

The firm earlier held discussions with its foreign investors for each to sell 8% of their individual holdings in ‌the ​IPO, totalling 2.5% of the company, Reuters reported previously. That ⁠would have allowed new investors ⁠to come in and let foreign investors sell some of their holdings without any fresh fundraising in a process called an offer-for-sale in India.

That plan has been dropped, two sources with direct knowledge of the matter said. They requested anonymity because they ​were not authorised to speak to the media.

Reliance now plans to raise fresh funds totalling 2.5% of the company’s size. “Investors were not keen to sell and wanted to stay ⁠invested for the long term,” one of the sources ⁠said.

The Economic Times was first to report on the company’s plans ​to pivot to a fresh fundraising with the offering on Monday.

Jio Platforms did not respond ​to a Reuters request for comment.

WAR OVERHANG

The filing for the Jio Platforms IPO, ‌which was expected as early as March, was pushed back following the outbreak of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, with investors losing appetite for new listings.

In March, Walmart-backed Indian fintech firm PhonePe paused plans for an IPO, citing geopolitical tensions and volatility in global capital ⁠markets.

The Iran war is certainly an “overhang,” said the first source, speaking about Jio Platform’s delayed IPO filing.

Jio Platforms’ listing is a key plank of Ambani’s long-term vision to transform Reliance from ⁠an oil-and-chemicals giant into an “everything ‌company” spanning consumer, retail and technology.

In 2020, Jio raised funds from ⁠major global investors who were betting on India’s rapidly expanding ​digital economy ‌where smartphone penetration is accelerating, internet costs are among the lowest ​in the ⁠world and a young, mobile-first population is coming online.

In November, investment bank Jefferies estimated Reliance Jio’s valuation would be $180 billion. Sources told Reuters in January that the IPO could be worth as much as $4 billion, though final numbers would be decided later.

Reliance Jio Platforms has hired 17 banks to manage its Mumbai listing.

(Reporting by Aditya Kalra and Vibhuti Sharma; Editing by Sonali ​Paul and Thomas Derpinghaus)