Ultimate Goal

Bali United is the first football club in Southeast Asia to go public. Similar steps by others could improve the country’s football industry.

- Ulisari Eslita

Bali-based football club Bali United scored a history on June 17, as it becomes the first listed football club in the country. Not just in Indonesia, the club is also the first to be a public listed company in Southeast Asia and the second sports management firm to go public in Asia after China’s Guangzhou Evergrande Taobao FC in 2015. The listing had been met with much enthusiasm from investors, with the shares 110 times oversubscribed during the public offering period. At the first day of trading the company share price rocketed by 69% to Rp 296 and hit the Indonesia Stock Exchange ceiling for auto rejection. Such warm acceptance could spark a new trend for other sports team to follow the step.

“I never thought Bali United share price would go way far beyond Rp175 per share, because our first plan was only raising Rp300 billion,” says Yabes Tanuri, CEO of PT Bali Bintang Sejahtera, the company behind the football club. Yabes is also the brother of investment banker Pieter Tanuri who has a close connection with the Salim group.