Bukalapak CEO Resigns Months After Top Indonesian E-Commerce Firm’s Historic IPO Shares Fall

Shares of Bukalapak fell on Thursday after Rachmat Kaimuddin resigned as CEO a number of months after main the e-commerce firm’s historic initial community providing on the Jakarta Stock Exchange.

Bukalapak stated it has appointed Willix Halim, currently the company’s chief functioning officer, as interim CEO subsequent Kaimuddin’s resignation. Its shares fell as considerably as 4.9% in Jakarta buying and selling now, touching an all-time lower of 430 rupiah.

The organization produced background in August right after elevating $1.5 billion from its IPO, the country’s most important-ever maiden share sale. The shares initially rallied, jumping 25% on its first trading day, but sentiment turned sour promptly as traders questioned how Bukalapak can contend in opposition to more substantial e-commerce players these kinds of as homegrown GoTo, which was fashioned from the merger of Gojek and Tokopedia in May perhaps, and Singapore-dependent rivals this kind of as Get and Sea Group’s Shopee. The shares are now down approximately 60% from its IPO price of 850 rupiah apiece.

“The CEO’s departure confirms our fears about the company’s vulnerabilities,” Nirgunan Tiruchelvam, Singapore-based head of purchaser sector equity investigation at Tellimer, said by using textual content messaging. “The business is at most effective a marginal participant with an unsettled administration workforce.”

Tiruchelvam initiated coverage of Bukalapak this month with a provide rating and target cost of 413 rupiah for every share. “Bukalapak is a peripheral participant that will be eroded by sector leaders Sea, Get and GoTo,” he reported in his initiation be aware. “As the fourth-most significant player in Indonesia’s e-commerce marketplace, Bukalapak has only 7% market share, and it will be limited by its absence of scale.”

Kaimuddin is leaving Bukalapak to operate for the governing administration two yrs after being appointed CEO in 2019, in accordance to the company. The previous financier was tapped for the occupation due to the fact the company’s investors observed him as the proper human being to staunch the stream of crimson ink and set the 11-calendar year-outdated business on a route of profitability. 

When the enterprise remains in the purple, Kaimuddin is credited for bringing in bluechip investors into the business. Bukalapak’s roster of traders features Singapore’s sovereign prosperity fund GIC, China’s Ant Group, U.S. tech huge Microsoft, Conventional Chartered lender and South Korean web portal Naver Company, among the others.

“We have been very positively surprised with the momentum and the level of fascination from both domestic and intercontinental buyers,” Alvin Sariaatmadja, president director of Emtek, the biggest shareholder of Bukalapak, instructed Forbes Asia just right before the tech unicorn shown.