PT Pertamina, Indonesia’s state-owned oil and gas company, is weighing an initial public offering of its exploration unit that could be the biggest first-time share sale in Southeast Asia in more than a decade, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
The potential listing of PT Pertamina Hulu Energi could raise at least $3 billion, said the people, who asked not to be named as the information is private. Pertamina has picked advisers and is targeting holding the Jakarta offering as soon as next year, the people said.
Deliberations on the prospective deal are at an early stage and the size and timing could change, the people said.
Agus Suprijanto, spokesman for Pertamina, said the company is considering the best mechanism to fund the growth of the unit, including bond sales, project financing, partnerships or capital market financing. Pertamina Hulu Energi Finance Director Harry Mozarta Zen declined to comment.
At $3 billion, the IPO would be the biggest in Southeast Asia since Hutchison Port Holdings Trust’s $5.5 billion Singapore offering in 2011, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. It would also be more than twice as large as Indonesia’s current record holder, the 2008 listing of PT Adaro Energy in Jakarta which raised $1.3 billion, the data show.
The IPO plan comes as Indonesia looks to introduce a number of its assets into public markets, including two Pertamina units. A Pertamina Hulu listing would join PT Dayamitra Telekomunikasi, the infrastructure services unit of state-owned PT Telkom Indonesia, which is seeking to raise $1 billion from a first-time share sale in Jakarta as early as this year.
Indonesia has hosted only $137 million of IPOs so far this year, down from $231 million from the same period in 2020, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Pertamina Hulu is an upstream — or exploration and production — unit of the state energy company. The firm was set up in 2001 with the introduction of a law to separate Pertamina’s upstream and downstream, or refining and processing, operations, according to its website. Pertamina Hulu has a portfolio of 58 subsidiaries, six joint ventures and two affiliated companies that manage oil and gas blocks in Indonesia and abroad.
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