GoTo Reportedly Open to Merger With Rival Tech Giant Grab

The CEO of Indonesian super app GoTo is reportedly still weighing a merger with rival Grab.

Patrick Walujo made those comments to the Financial Times (FT) in an interview published Wednesday (March 12), while also revealing his company’s first annual profit.

“I will always be open to anything that is enhancing our shareholders’ return … in the long term,” said Walujo.

Asked if he would consider a deal that involved the whole company or parts of it, the executive added: “This is something that we need to really consider. Because the other thing that’s unique about GoTo is that we are a national champion.”

Walujo told the FT that GoTo had a responsibility to its workers, and to developing tech capabilities within Indonesia.

Reports first emerged last year that GoTo — operator of the Gojek ride-hailing platform and partial owner of eCommerce service Tokopedia — was in talks with Singapore-based Grab, though the companies denied the discussions were taking place.

A merger between GoTo and Grab would likely attract the attention of regulators, the FT noted, as it would involve two of the biggest ride-hailing/food delivery services in the region.

The combined company would have a market value of $23 billion, but as the FT points out, this is well below the $72 billion the companies were worth when they went public in 2021 and 2022, as stiff competition for ride-hailing and food delivery has driven down prices.

The past year has seen several companies in this space struggle. For example, Grubhub announced last month that it was cutting a fifth of its staff after being sold to meal delivery service Wonder.

“In order to achieve our ambition, we must prioritize the right work and execute with speed and conviction by reducing management layers, bringing leaders closer to the business, and removing duplication,” CEO Howard Migdal said in a message to employees.

“As a result, we’ve made the difficult decision to eliminate approximately 500 positions at Grubhub. These changes span all teams as we begin to integrate functions with Wonder.”

Meanwhile, Grab said last month that it views autonomous vehicles (AVs) as one of its next growth drivers.

“I personally, and, our leadership has actually taken many rides across the world, across various brands just to understand and be forward-leaning in this space,” CEO and Co-founder Anthony Tan said during an earnings call.

“We believe we are in a prime position in supporting the AV transition over the next few years, and we have a very significant role to play in this region via a hybrid AV human fleet.”