By Stefanno Sulaiman
JAKARTA, Feb 27 (Reuters) – The Indonesia Stock Exchange plans to implement in stages an upcoming requirement for companies to double their minimum freely tradable stocks to 15% based on their readiness, its interim chief executive told Reuters on Friday.
The bourse may divide companies into batches according to their readiness to offer more stocks to meet the 15% free-float rule, with the first batch given a year to comply and the second batch two years, Jeffrey Hendrik said in an interview, adding details were subject to approval by the Financial Services Authority.
The comments are the clearest details authorities have given about the plan to increase the mandatory free float, among a raft of capital market reforms pledged since MSCI in late January warned Indonesia risked being downgraded to frontier market status as early as May, due to limited transparency it said may have enabled price manipulation.
“We have requested that the issuers’ association provide us with a schedule (of companies that are ready). We hope that the schedule will be quite aggressive so that it can be fulfilled as quickly as possible,” Jeffrey said.
A combined 187 trillion rupiah ($11.15 billion) worth of shares could be released if all of the more than 200 companies with free float currently under 15% choose to meet the new requirement, according to stock ownership data at the end-2025. Companies could also choose to delist.
CONCERN OVER UPTAKE OF ADDITIONAL STOCKS
Assessment is underway to look at details of each company, such as their market capitalisation and how much more stocks they will have to sell, Jeffrey said.
“Our main concern is how the additional supply of stocks will be absorbed,” he said.
After the regulation on free float is approved and ratified, the IDX will announce names of the companies that make it into “the priority group”, he said.
The main stock index has bounced back from its lows but remains down more than 5% in 2026, making it the region’s weakest-performing benchmark.
On top of higher free float threshold, Indonesian financial authorities have announced reform measures that include tightening ownership disclosure, expanding the investor classifications, and also tougher enforcement against market abuses.
The IDX aims to next week publish a list of the names of all shareholders who own more than 1% of stock in a listed company, plus a list of firms with concentrated shareholding, he said.
(Reporting by Stefanno Sulaiman; Writing by Gayatri Suroyo; Editing by Martin Petty)
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