MatahariMall Appointed Credit Suisse and Bank of America Merrill Lynch to Spearhead Their Fundraising Campaign

MatahariMall announced that they’ve just appointed Credit Suisse and Bank of America Merrill Lynch to lead their fundraising campaign, which aims for $200 million. The money is intended to turn MatahariMall into the biggest e-commerce player in Indonesia. This round, Rothschild gets involved as the Grup Lippo’s Financial Advisor.

MatahariMall, just appointed Hadi Wenas as its CEO, will allocate the funding to execute their strategies. Hadi Wenas stated in his press release:

“This is the biggest opportunity in Southeast Asia. The funding enables us to focus on running the business without any barriers to pursue what we believe, which is to dominate Indonesian e-commerce (market).”

John Riady of Grup Lippo added, “We welcome investors’ good will. In past few months, MatahariMall has made a lot of improvements and now is the perfect time to go with the partnership. We are glad to collaborate with Credit Suisse and Bank of America upon searching for partners who share our vision.”

Previously, MatahariMall has initiated $500 million of capital injection while entering the e-commerce business with its O2O concept, a concept which enables consumers to redeem and return the items they purchase at 127 Matahari’s offline stores all in 62 cities all over Indonesia.

MatahariMall has also confirmed that they will start operating this coming summer, or between June-July 2015 (suppossedly before the Eid al-Fitr) and offer more than 500.000 products. Besides appointing Hadi Wenas, MatahariMall has also appointed Garuda Indonesia’s ex-Boss Emirsyah Satar as the Chairman and Google Indonesia’s ex-Boss Rudy Ramawy as the Vice Chairman.

Grup Lippo claimed that they pick the perfect timing to enter the industry. They argued that the Indonesian digital ecosystem is in the critical inflection right now. The total sales of online retail only cover less than 1% of the total retail sales, but it’s projected to grow ten times bigger in the next five years.

In a strong network outside Jakarta, Grup Lippo feel that they can catch the opportunity of vast growth all over Indonesia.

Jan Metzger, Credit Suisse’s Managing Director and Head of Technology, Media & Telecommunications for Asia Pacific, stated, “E-commerce has the power to change the whole retail industry, and Indonesia represents a huge market opportunity. Considering Lippo’s track record in building prominent companies in various sectors, like property, retail, health services, and paid television, this group has the skills and coverage to position themselves as a prominent player in e-commerce industry.”

“Indonesia, the largest country in Southeast Asia, becomes more active in online sphere and the momentum would be significant in every e-commerce sector in Indonesia. This is encouraged by three trends, which are strong economic growth, urbanization, and rapid tech adoption. With all the track records of establishing prominent businesses especially in Indonesia, as well as the e-commerce synergy it possesses, Grup Lippo is in the right track to the the foremost player in attractive e-commerce sector dynamics,” added Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s Head of Southeast Asia Investment Banking Chris Gammons.