Indonesia’s Bukalapak Soars on First Day of Trading

JAKARTA, KOMPAS.com – Indonesian e-commerce firm PT Bukalapak (BUKA) soared 25 percent as the country’s first tech unicorn hit the market through an initial public offering (IPO) on Friday, August 6.

Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) president director Inarno Djajadi said that Bukalapak is the 28th company to conduct IPO this year. The company’s IPO has attracted 96,000 investors.
“This listing has made history as Bukalapak is the first unicorn to list on Indonesia Stock Exchange and in the Southeast Asian stock markets,” said Inarno in an opening ceremony which was held virtually.

Reuters News Agency reported that the firm shares closed at 1,060 Indonesian rupiahs ($0.0738) after reaching the 25 percent limit minutes after opening as it raised $1.5 billion in Indonesia’s biggest IPO, valuing it at $6 billion.

Also read: Google, Temasek Now Shareholders of Indonesian E-commerce Unicorn Tokopedia

Indonesia is the largest producer of startups whereby 27 start-up companies gain the status of centaur or companies with a valuation of $100 million. “Indonesia houses half of the 12 companies that have at least unicorn status in the ASEAN region, making Indonesia the largest unicorn producer in ASEAN,” Inarno said.

“Indonesia also has great potential to produce new unicorns because there are 27 leader state startup companies with centaur status,” he added.

Inarno hoped that Bukalapak can inspire the owners and management of companies including unicorns, centaurs, and other tech startups to contribute to the country. “Make IDX the house of growth for the development of companies,” he said.

Previously, Bukalapak had done bookbuilding and roadshow process, as well as a public offering in July. As a result, the number of orders through the pooling allotment method reached about 4.8 trillion rupiahs ($334.5 million). It then increased the portion of the pooling allocation for retail investors from 2.5 percent to five percent of the total available orders. Therefore, the value of the shares allocated for the pooling allocation portion rose to 1.1 trillion rupiahs ($76.6 million) from 547.5 billion rupiahs ($38.1 million).

Bukalapak president director Rahmat Kaimuddin expressed his gratitude that BUKA has gone public through the IPO smoothly.

(Writer: Ade Miranti Karunia | Editor: Ambaranie Nadia Kemala Movanita)

Source: https://money.kompas.com/read/2021/08/06/095727026/resmi-melantai-di-bei-bukalapak-toreh-sejarah-sebagai-unicorn-pertama-yang-ipo.