Indonesia on track to have a busy year for IPOs

Jakarta

WHEN a rice porridge vendor in West Java uploaded a photo of what she claimed to be plastic rice that wouldn't soften in time for her breakfast customers, it was as if Christmas and birthdays came all at once for rice producer PT Buyung Poetra Sembada.

The company's revenues nearly doubled that year as consumers snubbed bulk rice at traditional markets. They have been hauling 5kg-20kg bags of the company's rice off supermarket shelves ever since - believing those products were safer. Trouble was sluggish markets, a slowing economy and political uncertainty made it tough to raise capital to seize on the shift in consumer taste - until now.