Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – The plan for the Merger of Grab and Gojek is entering a new phase. Now SoftBank boss Masayoshi Son has stepped in to ask Anthony Tan, founder of Grab, to make a ceasefire with motorbikes and carry out more serious negotiations.
Bloomberg News reported citing a source, as quoted Sunday (18/20/2020), this corporate action plan had been discussed for months. The most important point for the final discussion is whether Grab and Gojek will be combined, or if Grab will acquire Gojek in Indonesia.
The two companies have different visions regarding this merger plan. Grab hopes to be able to acquire the Gojek business in Indonesia so that it can run the business as a Grab subsidiary, said the source.
Unlike Grab, Gojek actually hopes that the collaboration between the two companies will be carried out at the Southeast Asian regional level. This is in line with the plans that Masayoshi Son has.
Then who is Masayoshi Son? He is the founder and CEO of SoftBank and holds the status of one of the richest men in Japan. Masayoshi is known to be happy to flush his startups with millions of US dollars.
Through the Vision Fund, Masayoshi has become the ‘brother coach’ of more than 60 unicorn startups or with a valuation of over US $ 1 billion. One of the largest startup portfolios is ride hailing.
SoftBank invests in Grab (Southeast Asia, Uber (America, Europe), Ola (India), and Didi Chuxing (China). It is estimated that SoftBank’s investment in ride-hailing startups is more than US $ 20 billion, as quoted by CNBC International.
However, the Covid-19 pandemic made SoftBank change its business strategy, especially in the WeWork case where this co-working space startup dropped in value due to governance or governance issues.
This pandemic has prompted SoftBank to encourage its startups to consolidate and reduce competition for burning money. SoftBank also encourages its startups to immediately pursue profitability.
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