Southeast Asian multi-sector company Gojek, which owns Indonesia’s largest mobile ticketing platform, GoTix, is reportedly in advanced merger talks with local e-commerce firm PT Tokopedia.
The move would see the combined company, which plans to go public in the US and Indonesia, valued at around $18bn, with businesses including from ride-hailing, payments, delivery and online shopping.
According to three people familiar with the negotiations, the two entities have signed a detailed term sheet to conduct due diligence of each other’s business over the next couple of months, the Financial Times reports.
The deal has been given an added boost after receiving approval from Japanese billionaire Masayoshi Son, whose company SoftBank has invested in Tokopedia.
Jakarta-based Gojek has so far raised $5bn in venture and growth funding to date, while Tokopedia, also based in Jakarta, has raised $2.8bn since its inception in 2009.
“This is potentially a blockbuster deal,” said Usman Akhtar, a partner at Bain & Co. in Singapore, Bloomberg reports. “The deal would have a lot of impact outside of these two companies and have ripple effects that aren’t even all known right now.”
Gojek and Tokopedia have reportedly considered a potential merger since 2018, but discussions accelerated after deal talks between Gojek and ride-hailing rival Grab, which were on going through much of 2020, reached an impasse.
While Gojek’s relationship with Grab has been historically acrimonious, it has maintained a friendly bond with Tokopedia and already partners with the firm for logistics and payments services.
Gojek’s popular GoPay payments platform would likely be leveraged for Tokopedia’s millions of shoppers as a main focus of the merger.
According to the Financial Times, it is likely Tokopedia chief executive William Tanuwijaya will manage the ecommerce business while Gojek’s joint chief executives Andre Soelistyo and Kevin Aluwi handle ride-sharing and financial services.
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