Indonesian coffee chain Fore Coffee’s IPO oversubscribed by 200 times

Indonesian coffee chain Fore Coffee made its trading debut on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX), following a heavily oversubscribed initial public offering that attracted more than 114,000 investors.

The East Ventures-incubated company priced its IPO at US$0.012 (RP188) per share, issuing 1.88 billion new shares to raise approximately $22.3 million (RP353.44 billion) in fresh capital.

Fore Coffee plans to allocate around 75 percent of the funds to its domestic expansion, with a target of 140 new outlets over the next two years.

An estimated $3.8 million (RP60 billion) will be invested in launching a new doughnut concept, while the remaining $1.1 million (RP18 billion) will go towards working capital.

Wilson Cuaca, president and chairman of Fore Coffee, and co-founder and managing partner at East Ventures, said the strong response to the IPO demonstrates the appeal of homegrown startups to public investors.

“The counter-intuitive decision to proceed with the IPO during the lowest IDX Composite index since the pandemic paid off,” Cuaca said.

Mandiri Sekuritas and Henan Putihrai Sekuritas acted as joint lead underwriters and intermediaries for the offering.