This year’s winner of best securities house in Indonesia, Indo Premier Securities, has the feel of an underdog. But during Asiamoney’s awards period, the independent brokerage, led by president and chief executive officer Moleonoto The, staked out an admirable position in a capital market flooded with international brokers, regional-local partnerships and the dominant trading arm of Bank Mandiri.
Indonesia’s equity capital markets and equities underwriting business are kept busy by a flow of small IPOs and follow-on offerings, typically all under $100 million in size.
But every quarter or so a chunky deal comes along: in April, a Rp4.2 trillion ($296 million) sell-down of Map Aktif Adiperkasa hit the screens and Indo Premier secured the position of domestic lead underwriting manager, the only local firm in a syndicate of four.
Indo Premier is an independent domestic securities house, so it has no support from a large financial name. The firm underwrote the third-largest chunk of the Map Aktif deal; as a result it sits at the top of the Dealogic league table for Indonesia’s top 20 global coordinators and bookrunners by deal volume this year, beating both local and international firms.
Mandiri Sekuritas, perhaps the country’s best-known brokerage internationally, has yet to make it into the top 20 in the same league table, and in 2018 the firm was in 11th place, trailing Indo Premier, in eighth place.
Granted Mandiri comes into its own in broker-dealing – the leading domestic securities house almost consistently month on month based on trading frequency. But Indo Premier has typically been right behind its competitor and at times has even snatched the top spot.
During 2018, it ranked second after Mandiri in the months of June, July and August, while the pair were pushed down a position in the league table in December, according to data from the Indonesia Stock Exchange. However, it leapfrogged Mandiri into first place in September, October and November.
For the first two months of this year Indo Premier sat atop its competitor in second place overall, while the positions reversed in March, April and May.
In overall value Indo Premier slips down the league table, although more often than not it is still among the top 10 brokers on the IDX.
As an independent firm, Indo Premier’s successful tussle with Indonesian powerhouse Mandiri Sekuritas in the underwriting business and its position in the equities trading market makes it a winner.