Conglomerate Chairul Tanjung Confirms Transmart Will Not Be Acquired By Bukalapak, But There Will Be A New Entity Synergizing With Tycoon Anthony Salim

Conglomerate Chairul Tanjung. (Photo: Doc. Forbes)

JAKARTA - The massive collaboration of the CT Group of conglomerate Chairul Tanjung and the Salim Group of tycoon Anthony Salim in the corporate action of PT Allo Bank Indonesia Tbk (BBHI) indirectly provides new opportunities for the modern retail business of the two conglomerates.

As is known, recently the Salim Group was registered to participate in the CT Group corporate action belonging to Chairul Tanjung. In this case, the Salim Group, together with Grab and PT Bukalapak.com Tbk (BUKA) joined as the new shareholders of Allo Bank Indonesia after the corporate rights issue.

For the CT Group, the recent collaboration through Allo Bank (BBHI) with Bukalapak is also expected to encourage Transmart and Carefour. Previously, Chairul Tanjung had mentioned that Allo Bank's corporate action with Bukalapak opened collaboration in the electronic trading sector (e-commerce/e-commerce).

According to him, the Trans Retail Indonesia company will cooperate with BUKA to form an e-commerce joint venture, especially fresh and grocery products.

"We are currently in the process. We will form an e-commerce joint venture specifically for fresh and grocery, between Trans Retail and Bukalapak. The portion is 55 percent CT Corp and 45 percent Bukalapak," said Chairul Tanjung in Jakarta on Tuesday, January 11.

However, Chairul said Trans Retail would not be acquired by Bukalapak, but the two would be established in the form of collaboration. However, the question is whether the collaboration will eventually give rise to a new entity.

For information, Trans Retail is a new entity from PT Trans Retail's acquisition of 100 percent of PT Carrefour Indonesia's shares in 2013. From this corporate action, the company's name was changed to PT Trans Retail Indonesia.

Quoted from its official website, currently Trans Retail has a number of modern retail brands, namely Transmart, Carrefour and Groserindo. Trans Retail so far has 134 modern retail outlets spread throughout Indonesia.

On the other hand, retail companies belonging to the Salim Group will also be blessed with their collaboration with the CT Group which was initiated through a corporate action at BBHI. Chairul Tanjung once said that with the Salim Group's business lines spread across various business lines, one of which is modern retail, it will make the two joint ventures have the largest ecosystem in Indonesia.

Just for the record, the Salim Group is the parent of PT Indoritel Makmur Internasional Tbk. (DNET) which is affiliated with PT Indomarco Prismatama, the holder of the modern retail brand Indomaret. In addition, the Salim Group also has a line of business in hypermarket-class modern retail, namely Superindo and the Indo Wholesale wholesale center.

In the retail sector, Anthony Salim individually controls 25.3 percent of DNET's shares, which is the parent company of the Indomaret minimarket network. As of December 31, 2020, there were more than 18,000 Indomaret outlets throughout Indonesia.