Indonesia’s GoTo to sell US$96 million stake in retailer Alfamart

Indonesia’s PT GoTo Gojek Tokopedia said on Wednesday it has sold its stake in local retailer Alfamart worth 1.5 trillion rupiah (US$96.03 million), days after the tech firm announced its strategy to focus on accelerating profitability.

The announcement comes at a time when GoTo shares are trading at record low levels.

The expiry of an eight-month lock-in period for pre-IPO shareholders followed by some of them deciding not to take up a secondary offering meant shares plunged nearly 55per cent in the last two weeks, wiping out nearly US$8.8 billion in market value.

GoTo is the result of a merger between ride-hailing-to-payments company Gojek and e-commerce leader Tokopedia. Since going public in April, GoTo has lost more than US$23 billion in market value and is trading at 94 rupiah – 72per cent below the IPO value of 338 rupiah.

GoTo, which logged a narrower loss in the third quarter, aims to prioritise profitability, consider shaving off non-core assets and investmentd, and not make any “new investments that do not contribute to acceleration of profitability”.

“Alfamart has performed strongly, providing us with an opportunity to realise a significant gain on our minority investment,” said Jacky Lo, GoTo’s chief financial officer.

Alfamart, which trades as Sumber Alfaria Trijaya, was down 0.4per cent as of 0718 GMT to 2,590 rupiah.