The first nickel IPO
An Indonesian nickel company, PT Trimegah Bangun Persada Tbk, is set for an initial public offering in April 2023. This will be the first Indonesian nickel company to go public, and it will certainly mark a milestone for the Indonesian Stock Exchange ever since the fanfare about the rise of the nickel industry started a few years ago and began to spill over into the Exchange.
PT Trimegah Bangun Persada Tbk is a company that became a holding company for the subsidiaries whose main businesses are nickel smelting to produce ferro-nickel as well as nickel processing to produce the raw materials for EV batteries. These industries have become a new powerhouse for the Indonesian economy, so this IPO is welcome by the Indonesian business community as well as by global investors.
PT Trimegah Bangun Persada is part of the Harita Group conglomeration. The group started as a small retail store that grew into the forestry business, palm oil plantations, coal mining, and bauxite and nickel ore mining before developing manufacturing production for aluminum (from bauxite ore) and nickel. The nickel-manufacturing facilities are concentrated on a small Obi island in North Mollucas Province, in eastern Indonesia. The nickel business started with smelters for nickel pig iron and ferro-nickel before the company embarked on developing High Pressure Acid Leaching (HPAL), which produces raw materials for EV batteries.
In the meantime, the Central Board of Statistics released its balance of trade report for the month of February 2023. The trade balance was reported at a surplus of $5,477.8 million, even higher than that of the previous month, $3,880.9 million. The total trade surplus for the first two months of 2023 stands at $9,358.7 million, 95.09% higher than the $4,797 million achieved in the same period of the previous year. That figure underscores Indonesia's strong external trade position, for which the new drivers of the economy have started to show significant trade surpluses. Exports in February reached $21,396.9 million while imports reached $15,919.1 million. Cumulative exports in January-February 2023 reached $43,720.7 million while cumulative imports for the same period were $34,362.0 million
The Central Board of Statistics also reported the Consumer Price Index for February, which registered inflation of 0.16%. With that monthly inflation, Y/Y inflation in February reached 5.47%. While higher than the inflation corridor targeted by the Central Bank, Y/Y inflation continued to weaken in February. Against that background, Bank Indonesia kept the benchmark rate constant at 5.75% at its policy meeting held March 15-16, 2023.
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