By Anshuman Daga
SINGAPORE (Reuters) -GoTo Group, Indonesia's biggest tech firm, said it plans to raise $1.1 billion in an initial public offering (IPO), pricing the deal in the top half of its indicative range and making it one of Asia's biggest IPOs so far this year.
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 earlier this month, braving turbulence in global equity markets.
"We are pleased with the investor response, which has remained resilient, despite global macro and market volatility," Andre Soelistyo, GoTo Group's CEO, said in a statement on Thursday.
GoTo's offering attracted strong institutional demand in the book-building process despite a weak investor appetite for tech stocks that has battered shares of the company's Southeast Asian peers, such as Sea Ltd and Grab Holdings.
GoTo is backed by the likes of SoftBank Group Corp, Alibaba (NYSE:BABA) Group and Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC.
It priced its IPO at 338 rupiah per share, representing a projected market value of about $28 billion, which would make it the country's fourth most valuable listed company.
Reuters reported last week that GoTo had received enough investor orders for its IPO to raise at least $1.1 billion, within its targeted price band. [L2N2VS03I]
The firm had set an indicative price range of 316 rupiah to 346 rupiah per share.
It is selling 46.7 billion Series A shares, comprising newly issued and treasury shares, thereby raising 15.8 trillion rupiah ($1.1 billion) in total. The IPO will be open from April 1-7 and the listing will take place on April 11 with the stock code GOTO.
($1 = 14,340.0000 rupiah)