Indonesia's richest man's business is doing very well for now
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| Indonesian billionaire Prajogo Pangestu Bloomberg Picture |
In JAKARTA, Indonesia, Bloomberg reported yesterday, billionaire Prajogo Pangestu’s fortune is soaring once again, a sharp reversal from the precipitous falls that erased billions over the past year.
The 81-year-old, who is Indonesia’s richest person, has added more than US$20bil to his net worth since it hit a low in April, lifting it to US$36.2bil, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
The surge has mainly been driven by MSCI’s decision this month to remove restrictions on three companies linked to the businessman, including PT Barito Renewables Energy, the geothermal firm that accounts for more than a third of his fortune.
Starting in August, MSCI will include them in its index assessment again, after excluding them due to concerns about the high concentration of shares held by controlling shareholders.
After MSCI’s announcement, Barito Renewables jumped 20%, sending Prajogo’s fortune up US$3.5bil, his biggest ever one-day gain.
“MSCI’s reversal removed a major overhang,” said Mohit Mirpuri, senior partner at SGMC Capital.
He noted trading volumes across Prajogo-linked stocks are now among the highest on Indonesia’s exchange.
The rebound highlights how the nation’s tightly held corporate structures can sharply amplify market moves and the subsequent effect it can have on individual fortunes.
In February the Indonesian billionaire saw US$5.4bil wiped out, and last September he suffered an even bigger one-day loss of US$5.9bil.
Since 2023, he has been on a wild ride, swinging billions in either direction.
At the centre of the frenzy is Barito Renewables, Indonesia’s top geothermal player, with more than 800 megawatts of capacity through its subsidiary Star Energy Geothermal.
As Indonesia, one of the world’s top carbon emitters, pushes for net-zero by 2060, the company’s role in the energy transition offers “long-term valuation support”, according to Herditya Wicaksana, technical analyst at MNC Sekuritas.
Still, the stock’s rapid rise has raised concerns. It briefly landed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange’s watchlist last year and crashed in September after index compiler FTSE Russell said it would exclude it from its indexes because of the high shareholder concentration, erasing nearly US$12bil from Prajogo’s all-time-high net worth of US$36.5bil.
“We struggle to justify this quantum of increase in market value,” JPMorgan Chase & Co analyst Arnanto Januri said in a 25 July note after the recent sector rally of Barito Renewables, PT Barito Pacific and petrochemical giant PT Chandra Asri Pacific.
“We suspect the market is being optimistic in its assessment of growth opportunities.”
“It’s really, really insane,” Leonardo Lijuwardi, an analyst at NH Korindo Sekuritas Indonesia, said about Barito Renewables compared with other geothermal firms.
He cited “conglomerate investing”, a retail trend that favours tycoons over fundamentals. “There’s a ‘Prajogo effect’.”
A spokesperson for petrochemicals company PT Barito Pacific, the parent company of Barito Renewables, declined to comment on Prajogo’s personal wealth and said the share moves were beyond the firm’s control and don’t reflect a significant change in its fundamentals.
Prajogo, the son of a rubber trader, started Barito Pacific in 1979 to sell timber.
The business has expanded to petrochemicals, power, property, plantation and forestry industries and now its core focus is power generation.
Entities linked to him, including Barito Pacific and Green Era, a Prajogo family office firm headed by daughter Nancy, own some 88% of Barito Renewables.
Externally, American multinational investment company BlackRock Inc is the biggest known shareholder with a 0.07% stake, according to Bloomberg data.
Concentrated ownership is a familiar theme in Indonesia’s stock market. Dozens of low free-float companies have surged 1,000% or more in recent years.
One standout: DCI Indonesia, the nation’s biggest data centre operator, soared more than 120% this month alone, triggering a trading suspension. Four people control nearly 80% of the company.
For Prajogo, companies tied to him have seen strong investor interest as “his name continues to carry weight in the market”, said Wicaksana of MNC Sekuritas.
PT Chandra Daya Investasi, which started trading earlier this month, has seen its stock surge by about 863% so far.
The infrastructure unit of Chandra Asri Pacific, raised 2.37 trillion rupiah (US$146mil) in its IPO, the largest in Indonesia this year.
His coal-producing unit PT Petrindo Jaya Kreasi has jumped about 6,991%, since its listing in 2023, while Barito Pacific has surged 127% over the past year.
Source: Bloomberg
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| Adapted by Fauzi Kadir Chief Editor
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