The South-East Asian market recorded US$1.45 billion in IPO proceeds between January and March, its highest-ever first-quarter tally and nearly twice the amount raised in Hong Kong.
"Indonesia remains a focus market and we want to do more” deals there, said Sunil Khaitan, head of equity capital markets for South East Asia at Bank of America Corp. in Singapore. The bank is working on about five more debuts within the next two to three quarters, he said. Interest in the nickel industry, which sits at the heart of President Joko Widodo’s vision of developing an end-to-end EV supply chain onshore, has helped producers get top dollar for their IPOs.
"The EV theme remains strong, I think it’s one of the bright spots for equity capital markets at the moment,” said Udhay Furtado, co-head of ECM, Asia Pacific at Citigroup Inc."We expect several large Indonesian IPOs coming to market from that sector.”While the IPO scene in Indonesia is promising, the market could soon fall behind Hong Kong, which looks set to get a boost from some sizable deals.