Renewable Energy Recharges Wealth Of Indonesian Conglomerate Sinar Mas Family

This story is part of Forbes’ coverage of Indonesia’s Richest 2024. See the full list here.

The Widjaja family’s wealth soared 75% to $18.9 billion, fueled by a sevenfold jump in shares of Dian Swastatika Sentosa, the energy-to-infrastructure unit of their Sinar Mas group. Now the family’s biggest asset, Dian Swastatika, has lately been expanding its renewables and telecoms portfolio.

Significant profit growth for non-coal businesses in 2023 helped drive investor enthusiasm, says Hendra Wardana, founder of Indonesian research firm Stocknow.id. While coal still accounted for the lion’s share of Dian Swastatika’s $5 billion revenue in 2023, sales were down 18% on weaker prices.

In September, Dian Swastatika said it would spend $400 million to develop two geothermal projects with the potential to generate over 80 megawatts. It’s also partnering with Korean tycoon Kim Nam-goo’s Korea Investment Real Asset Management to build a $300 million data center in Jakarta.

Separately, Sinar Mas concluded plans to merge its telecoms unit Smartfren with XL Axiata, the third-largest telecoms company in Indonesia by subscribers, in a deal valued at $6.5 billion. That will help the combined entity compete with bigger rivals: state-owned Telkomsel and Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison. The group’s property arm Sinar Mas Land is building a $1 billion special economic zone that includes schools and hospitals in BSD City, a mammoth 6,000-hectare district on the outskirts of Jakarta.