Pressure grew on Indonesian market regulators yesterday to launch an investigation into the initial public offering (IPO) of Krakatau Steel, amid allegations of insider trading.
Shares in the country’s biggest steelmaker soared 49 percent from their offer price of 850 rupiah when they hit the market on Nov. 10, in a showcase listing for Southeast Asia’s biggest economy.
But the excitement has soured due to claims that the IPO, which was nine times oversubscribed, was priced artificially low to benefit a clutch of well-connected investors.
Indonesian Lawmakers in the House of Representatives on Monday added their voices to calls for an investigation.
“The parliament has agreed that Krakatau Steel and its underwriters should be investigated,” said Achsanul Qosasi, a member of parliament from the Democrats party of Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
“There are many noises and rumors that the company and underwriters deliberately set a low offer price to serve the interests of certain groups,” Qosasi said.
Lawmakers demanded the Supreme Audit Agency — which oversees government transactions — carry out an investigation “as soon as possible,” he added.
Coordinating Minister for the Economy Hatta Rajasa has reportedly backed calls for a probe, saying: “Everything that does not involve state secrets can be opened to the public.”
IndoPremiere Securities fund manager Suherman Santikno agreed that there should be a probe into the IPO of Krakatau Steel, as there were allegations that the share was set at an unfair price.
“Let’s just open it, this is not a state secret. The underwriters should have the data on the allocation of shares,” Santikno said. “I don’t think the investigation will have any effects on other IPOs in the country. The confidence of foreign investors will likely to increase if there is a probe.”
The stock leaped from its 850 rupiah offer price to 1,270 rupiah on its first day of trading, hitting the maximum daily gain and triggering an automatic block on higher bids. It traded at around 1,290 rupiah per share yesterday.
The company sold 3.2 billion shares for 2.7 trillion rupiah (US$302 million), making it the biggest IPO by value for a state-owned Indonesian company since 2006.
Underwriters Mandiri Sekuritas, Danareksa Sekuritas and Bahana Securities have said the offer price reflected the earning ratios of comparable companies and have denied any outside interference, the Jakarta Globe daily reported.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day