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Jakarta Post

Kresna Graha Investama to conserve cash, expand into new ventures

The company saw its net profit slump last year as it expanded into new fields.

Yunindita Prasidya (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Wed, June 3, 2020

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Kresna Graha Investama to conserve cash, expand into new ventures A visitor walks past a stock price display at the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) building in Jakarta on March 13. (JP/Seto Wardhana)

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ublicly listed holding company PT Kresna Graha Investama has stated that it is working to ensure profitability by looking for businesses with good growth potential and good quality as it ventures into new business sectors.

“We’re shying away from a cash burning strategy,” Kresna Graha Investama business analyst and investor relations group head Stanley Tjiandra said during a virtual shareholders’ meeting on Friday. 

The company, which focuses on finance, investment and technology, has been transitioning into the digital space since 2015. It is now the parent company of payment gateway PT M Cash Integrasi, digital exchange platform PT NFC Indonesia and cloud advertising company PT Digital Mediatama Maxima, among other digital firms. 

Its shift to new industries has been largely rewarded, as most of its subsidiaries operating in the digital space saw a surge in profit last year.

PT NFC Indonesia booked a profit of Rp 36 billion (US$2.53 million) in 2019, 126 percent higher than the year before. PT Digital Mediatama Maxima’s profit increased by 119 percent to Rp 17 billion, and PT Distribusi Voucher Nusantara (DIVA) recorded a 9.5-fold increase in profit to Rp 94 billion.  

“We don’t want to join investments where the old economy dominates. We want to enter the new economy,” Kresna Graha Investama founder and president director Michael Steven said during the shareholders’ meeting, explaining the company’s reason for entering Indonesia’s digital economy. 

Last year, the company announced its plan to enter the life sciences and biotechnology space through its subsidiary, Kresna Biotech Ventures. As of December of last year, it was finalizing an investment plan with RWDC Industries, based in Singapore and the United States, whose mission is to replace single-use plastic with biodegradable materials. 

Kresna Biotech Ventures is also planning to invest funds in San Diego-based biotech company, Samumed, which focuses on research and development for tissue-level regeneration technology.

However, PT Kresna Graha Investama saw its net profit slump last year as it expanded its business into new fields.

Its net profit in 2019 fell by 57.1 percent to Rp 216.1 billion from the Rp 503.5 billion it had booked in 2018. It reported that its returns from the finance and investment sector saw a notable decline, while it booked growth on the technology and digital front. 

From the Rp 11.62 trillion the company booked in revenue last year, Rp 11.1 trillion came from the technology and digital front, or about 95.5 percent of the company’s total revenue, higher in than the 88.2 percent contribution in the previous year. 

Kresna Graha Investama’s share prices, traded on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) under the stock symbol KREN, had jumped almost 26 percent to Rp 97 as of 12:16 p.m. Jakarta time on Wednesday. The stocks have lost more than 83 percent in the last year, Bloomberg data shows.

Michael said the company’s share prices were not a reflection of the company’s fundamentals but were rather affected by the ongoing global crisis as well as the Jiwasraya scandal which had sent a ripple through the financial industry. 

On March 23, the company released a statement that it was going to buy back its shares to “help stabilize the price in volatile market conditions”. 

The buyback is being held for a period of three months from March 24 to June 24. The company has limited the shares' purchase price at a cap of Rp 515 per share.

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