Grab and Gojek are negotiating a merger?

Dealstreet Asia quoted The Information as saying that the two giants Grab and Gojek are discussing a potential merger deal in the future.

Accordingly, Grab Chairman Ma Ma and Gojek CEO Andre Soelistyo met earlier this month. However, the distance to an agreement is still very far.

Zing.vn contacted representatives of Grab and Gojek but both sides did not comment on the above information.

It is unclear if the merger is successful, Grab or Gojek will be the controlling party of the joint venture. Dealstreet Asia says Gojek wants a merger agreement of 50-50, while Grab wants to hold a controlling stake if it merges.

Both Grab and Gojek are "decacorns" in Southeast Asia with valuations exceeding the US $ 10 billion mark. The list of investors of both companies reaches dozens of names including big companies such as SoftBank, Microsoft, Toyota, Honda of Grab or Google, Temasek, Mitsubishi, and Samsung of Gojek. Only Visa is an investor of both.

Some Grab and Gojek investors are said to be open to mergers between the two.

If the Grab-Gojek merger takes place, Southeast Asia will be left with a unique name that dominates the ride-hailing market. However, this may face opposition from the authorities and the new venture will then undergo antitrust investigations. This was when Uber sold Southeast Asia to Grab in 2018.

Gojek has successfully raised more than 3 billion USD since its establishment in 2010. Meanwhile, the amount of money poured into Grab has exceeded 9 billion USD. Grab is also preparing to receive an additional $ 700 million from Japan's MUFG bank.

From the initial ride-hailing field, Grab and Gojek have become super applications in Southeast Asia, providing more services such as delivery, food delivery, electronic payment.