By Anshuman Daga
SINGAPORE (Reuters) -GoTo Group, Indonesia’s biggest tech firm, has received sufficient investor orders for its initial public offering that could raise at least $1.1 billion within its targeted price band, two sources familiar with the situation said on Thursday.
The sources, who declined to be identified as they were not authorised to speak to the media, said the offering got support from long-term investors, such as the Indonesian units of fund managers Schroders and Eastspring Investments.
GoTo, formed last year by the merger of ride-hailing-to-payments firm Gojek and e-commerce leader Tokopedia, surprised some investors and analysts when it launched its IPO process last week, braving turbulence in global equities markets.
GoTo’s offering attracted strong institutional demand in the book-building process despite global market volatility amid the Russia-Ukraine crisis and weak investor appetite for tech stocks that has battered the shares of Goto’s Southeast Asian peers.
GoTo, which is backed by the likes of SoftBank Group Corp, Alibaba Group and Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC, declined comment.
There was no immediate response to Reuters’ requests for comment sent to the Indonesian unit of Schroders and Eastspring Investments outside of Asia business hours.
GoTo’s IPO is expected to be priced in early April and will then be open to retail investors.
Last week, GoTo said it aimed to raise at least 15.2 trillion rupiah ($1.1 billion) by offering 48 billion new Series A shares in a price range of 316 rupiah to 346 rupiah per share.
The shares on offer represent up to 4.35% of its enlarged capital.
GoTo had said it was set to be valued at $26.2 billion to $28.8 billion, a valuation that would make it Indonesia’s fourth-biggest listed firm.
Its IPO, which marks the second-biggest fundraising by an Indonesian tech company, comes after GoTo secured $1.3 billion in a pre-IPO funding round in late 2021 when Abu Dhabi Investment Authority came in as the lead investor.
With over 2.5 million registered driver partners, 14 million registered merchants and 55 million annual transacting users as of Sept. 30, GoTo’s businesses straddle the Indonesian economy’s millions of small and medium-sized enterprises.
Shares in GoTo’s competitor, Internet services firm Sea Ltd have plunged since late last year, while shares in Grab Holdings have also collapsed since the company listed in the United States last year after a record $40 billion merger with a blank check firm.
($1 = 14,344.0000 rupiah)
(Reporting by Anshuman Daga; Additional reporting by Stefanno Sulaiman in Jakarta and Fanny Potkin in Singapore. Editing by Jane Merriman)
