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(Bloomberg) -- GoTo will give away thousands of shares to each of 600,000 drivers as part of its $1.1 billion Indonesian initial public offering, setting a precedent for Southeast Asia’s sharing economy.
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Drivers who registered with the ride-hailing and delivery app between 2010 and 2016 will get 4,000 GoTo shares, equivalent to $94 based on the IPO price of 338 rupiah. Those who registered from 2017 to February will get 1,000 shares, part of a total pool of more than $20 million allocated for drivers, according to a statement on Monday.
GoTo, formed through the merger of Gojek with e-commerce pioneer Tokopedia, raised $1.1 billion in one of the world’s biggest stock debuts this year and is slated to list in Jakarta April 11. While the giveaway represents a token amount, GoTo becomes the first major sharing-economy giant in Southeast Asia to include part-time gig workers in its own IPO windfall.
“It’s an acknowledgment that our driver-partners are part of our success,” Chief Executive Officer Andre Soelistyo said in an interview. “This is something we’ve wanted to do since the beginning.”
The mobile boom has minted an unprecedented number of billionaires from Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s Jack Ma to Sea Ltd. founder Forrest Li. Yet app-based gig-economy companies are typically built on the backs of low-wage contract workers, who work long hours but continue to lack employee benefits like health care or a safety net.
Their plight has gained regulatory and public attention in recent years, particularly during the pandemic when internet platforms flourished but social inequities widened. Singapore and other governments around the world are considering legislative changes to protect gig-economy workers.
Uber Technologies Inc. and Lyft Inc., which went public in 2019, gave frequent drivers cash to buy stock in the U.S. But the practice in Asia is rare.
South Korean e-commerce firm Coupang Inc. promised staff and frontline workers about $90 million worth of restricted stock. Goto’s rival Grab Holdings Ltd. -- which went public via a merger with a blank-check company in December -- handed out rewards equivalent to $1.4 million to drivers and merchant partners in Indonesia ahead of its listing.
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