By Bernadette Christina, Fransiska Nangoy and Yantoultra Ngui
JAKARTA/SINGAPORE (Reuters) -Shares in Trimegah Bangun Persada (TBP) ended 4.4% higher in their trading debut on Wednesday after the company, also known as Harita Nickel, raised 10 trillion rupiah ($672 million) in Indonesia’s biggest listing so far this year.
The firm debut by Harita Nickel could boost sentiment surrounding upcoming IPOs in Indonesia, one of the world’s hottest IPO markets this year amid a drive by the government to privatise some state-owned enterprises. Harita Nickel’s stock opened at 1,285 rupiah per share, slightly higher than its initial public offering (IPO) price of 1,250 rupiah a share, on the Indonesian stock exchange.
It climbed as high as 1,410 rupiah a share, then dropped to as low as 1,205 rupiah before closing at 1,305 rupiah, while the local benchmark stock index ended 0.18% lower.
TBP CEO Roy Arman Arfandy said the retail portion of the share sale was doubled to 5% of the total issue.
“There was quite a lot of oversubscription, because the demand was very high,” Roy told reporters at the company’s market debut ceremony on Wednesday.
The IPO comes at a time when nickel-rich Indonesia steps up efforts to become a major player in the electric vehicle industry. Harita Nickel’s peer Merdeka Battery Materials is scheduled to debut on the local bourse next, on April 18, after raising 8.75 trillion rupiah.
New share sales more than quadrupled in Indonesia to $828.1 million in the first quarter from the same period last year, according to Refinitiv data.
“We are really excited about the region, because countries like Indonesia and countries like Thailand – these are places where you see real growth coming back in a very meaningful way,” said Sunil Khaitan, Southeast Asia’s managing director and head of equity capital markets at Bank of America in Singapore.
Other upcoming IPOs in Southeast Asia’s largest economy this year include the upstream arm of state energy company Pertamina, Pertamina Hulu Energi, that could raise up to $2 billion, and state-owned fertiliser company Pupuk Kalimantan Timur that could raise $500 million.
Harita Nickel’s IPO was the largest in Indonesia in almost a year after the $1.1 billion listing of tech firm GoTo in April.
The miner will use the IPO proceeds to repay outstanding loans, and for capital spending and working capital, according to its IPO prospectus.
It is part of Jakarta-headquartered Harita Group, whose main businesses range from palm oil plantations to smelters.
BNP Paribas, Citigroup, Credit Suisse and Mandiri Sekuritas are the joint global coordinators and bookrunners of the IPO with DBS, OCBC and UOBKayHian, according to its prospectus.
($1 = 14,881.0000 rupiah)
(Reporting by Fransiska Nangoy and Christina Bernadette in Jakarta, Yantoultra Ngui in Singapore; Editing by Shri Navaratnam, Sonali Paul and Bernadette Baum)
