STATT MAGAZINE

S. Wanandi, Good Indonesian Businessman in the ‘98 Crisis

There are many conglomerates in Indonesia that they generally come from ethnic Chinese. Many people doubt their nationalism. This is related to the economic crisis that occurred in Indonesian, 1998. Many of them fled and left Indonesia with million-dollar debts left behind. But many of them also have good nationalism by taking action to overcome the economic crisis.

One of them is Sofyan Wanandi. He is an Indonesian nouveau riche and well known figure both as an entrepreneurship and politician. Together with his brother Jusuf Wanandi, he has built the Gemala group into a diversified conglomerate with business ranging from finance and insurance to pharmaceuticals. He is also known as a former anti – communist activist.

When the crisis came in 1998, he no longer had debts. He consolidates his businesses a year before the crisis and had settled his debts by selling several companies. So, Gemala Group was relatively unscathed by the crisis, while many other conglomerates took a fall.

Pande Raja Silalahi, an economist at CSIS (Centre for Strategic International Studies), described this nouveau riche as a dynamic businessman who can juggle a number of rules such as running a business, dabbling in politics and heading national organization at the some time. He has the ability to quickly understand what an emerging economic or political phenomenon means, allowing him time to anticipate what would happen. As an entrepreneur, nouveau riche, and political, Sofian has often become a target of the ruling authorities. He has been vocal in promoting the interests of the business sector including a critical role in revising the country’s laws, customs law and labor law to be more business friendly. In addition, Sofyan is also known as a philanthropist.

*Nouveau Riche refers to a person who starts his business from the ground and he success to develop it and become very rich through hard work and self-determination (Wikipedia).