Grab eyes upto $2 billion loan to support possible GoTo acquisition, Bloomberg News reports

REUTERS - Singapore-headquartered Grab is seeking a loan of up to $2 billion to support its potential takeover of Indonesia’s GoTo, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday citing people familiar with the matter.

 

The report stated that the so-called bridge loan could have a tenor of about 12 months, and that Grab’s talks with banks were in the early stages.

 

U.S.-listed ride-hailing and food delivery firm is also considering a bond or equity take-out after securing the bridge loan, the report added. 

 

GoTo declined to comment on the matter. Grab did not respond immediately to Reuters’ request for comments.

 

Last week, Goto, which operates the ride-hailing and food delivery platform Gojek, reiterated that there was no agreement with any party about a potential transaction following a media report that Grab was moving forward to buy it.

 

The merger talks between Grab, which is backed by Uber, and GoTo have been on-and-off but have not resulted in a deal, primarily due to competition concerns over the two major Southeast Asian players merging.

 

Singapore’s competition watchdog said last week that it had not received any notification from either of the companies on the proposed merger.   

 

(Reporting by Sherin Sunny in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Rajasik Mukherjee; Editing by Janane Venkatraman)