Representatives for Grab and JPMorgan declined to comment, while a representative for Morgan Stanley didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
Merging with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), a shell company whose sponsors raise money from investors in order to buy a private company and give it a berth on a public exchange, would allow Grab – Southeast Asia’s most valuable startup backed by SoftBank Group Corp. – to accelerate its listing process. Several of the region’s tech unicorns including Traveloka are considering going public through blank-check companies to ride on the red-hot sentiment.
Sea Ltd’s decade-long journey from a scrappy startup to Southeast Asia’s most valuable company has inspired many internet companies in the region to tap the capital markets to bankroll their expansion. Singapore-based Sea, which runs mobile gaming and e-commerce businesses, went public in the US in 2017 after raising US$989 million ($1.33 billion) and now has a market value of US$117 billion.
Grab’s listing considerations come after talks to combine with Indonesian rival Gojek collapsed. The latter startup is now in advanced discussions to merge with local e-commerce pioneer PT Tokopedia instead, creating a powerful player in online services that may then seek to go public as well, Bloomberg News has reported.
