Bukalapak’s $1.5B IPO Tracking To Be Biggest Offering In Indonesia

Indonesian eCommerce firm Bukalapak increased the size of its initial public offering (IPO) to $1.5 billion and is on track to be the largest public offering in the country, Reuters reported on Friday (July 16), citing sources.

It is anticipated that the shares will be priced between 750 and 850 rupiah, per the sources. The order books close on Monday (July 19) and have already been covered multiple times. The listing is expected to be upped to $1.5 billion, sources told Reuters. The market debut is scheduled for Aug. 6.

Bukalapak is Indonesia’s first technology unicorn to initiate an IPO. It was originally seeking to raise $300 million, but investor demand upped it to $800 million and then to $1.13 billion. Bukalapak is the fourth biggest company in Indonesia’s $40 billion eCommerce space, competing with Tokopedia, Sea, Shopee and Alibaba’s Lazada. 

Bukalapak, which is backed by GIC and Microsoft, has attracted investor interest for the IPO from long-only funds and sovereign wealth funds, as well as from local investors, one of the sources told Reuters. 

Indonesian technology giant GoTo Group — formed from the multi-billion-dollar merger between eCommerce firm Tokopedia and ride-hailing and payments company Gojek — is planning to go public in the coming months. The company is hoping to raise a minimum of $2 billion in pre-IPO funding, per the report.

The new public listings by Bukalapak and GoTo are anticipated to boost Indonesia’s lackluster IPO market, which stalled last year during the pandemic. Last year’s $470 million IPO market was down some 50 percent over the previous year, Reuters reported, citing data from Refinitiv. 

In April, Bukalapak raised $234 million in a funding round led by Microsoft, Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC and media group Emtek. Bukalapak is also eying a merger with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) to go public in the U.S. The company is working with Bank Mandiri’s securities arm, Mandiri Sekuritas, for the IPO.