OJK Freezes 2 Billion BEBS Shares Following Mirae Asset's Price Manipulation

Indonesia’s Financial Services Authority (OJK) has frozen a total of 2 billion BEBS shares linked to alleged stock price manipulation surrounding the company’s IPO and dummy trades by Mirae Asset Sekuritas. ‘The total value of all frozen shares is around Rp14.5 trillion, comprising about 2 billion shares at roughly Rp7,000 each,’ said Irjen Daniel Bolly Hyronimus Tifaona, the OJK Executive Director for Financial Services Investigation, in a press briefing on Wednesday (4 March). He stated that Mirae Asset gained up to Rp14.5 trillion through IPO manipulation and dummy stock trades. ‘The sequence of trades is alleged to have caused the BEBS share price on the regular market to rise significantly, by around 7,150 percent,’ he added. He explained that the transactions were executed by six operators under the control of two suspects: ASS, the Beneficial Owner of PT BEBS, and MWK, a former Director of Investment Banking at Mirae Asset. They engaged in securities trading or stock transactions that, in practice, conveyed false material facts to mislead investors into buying the shares. ‘Concerning the non-declaration of related parties receiving fixed allotment in the initial public offering and the reporting of IPO fund use not in line with actual conditions,’ he said. Additionally, OJK found dummy trades involving shares controlled through a network of affiliates and nominees. Insider trading itself is illegal in stock investment, with investors benefiting from information on trades from the company involved. ‘Consisting of inter-entity related party transactions involving seven corporate entities and 58 individual nominees, executed by six operators under the suspects’ control,’ he added.