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Entrepreneur Hashim Djojohadikusumo is diversifying his business interests and setting up new ventures that include mining and renewable energy.

At a time of global economic volatility, Hashim is no stranger to the ups and downs of business. Before the 1998 financial crisis, he was regarded as a fast-rising businessman with close ties to the country’s political elite.

His holdings included stakes in banks, agribusiness and energy. His brother, Prabowo Subianto, was a lieutenant general and the son-in-law of former President Suharto before going on to found the Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra).

Today Hashim’s empire has an estimated turnover of $1.2 billion, with interests ranging from energy, petrochemicals, cement, shipping and agribusiness.

“We have been in commodities for a long time; palm oil and maize. Now rubber. We are already in the rubber business in West Java and are looking to expand to Kalimantan and Aceh,” he said.

Hashim owns a modest 400 hectares of rubber plantation in West Java but is planning more extensive rubber estates in East Kalimantan, where he owns 21,000 hectares of land initially intended for oil palms.

Known as one of the country’s most “discreet” business operators, Hashim admits that he recently entered the tin business with the acquisition of a mining company on Bangka Island, where he is looking at the prospect of its tin being used in electronics industries.

“It’s not about tin cans but as raw material used in cell phones, laptops, TV screens and other electronic components,” he said. “We are also looking to invest in gold mining in Indonesia and abroad. Also coal, but we have not made any investments yet.”

The plantation business will still be viable for the next 10 to 20 years, Hashim believes, and he is expanding his land bank on Sumatra and in West Kalimantan.

“We have been a player in maize for a long time, together with its end products like food and animal feed and now we are looking into developing maize in Sumba in eastern Indonesia and Kalimantan as well,” he said.

He faces major competition, however, as commodities are also being hotly pursued by some of the country’s largest conglomerates, such as Astra International, Sinar Mas and the Salim Group.

He is also an emerging player in the country’s promising renewable energy sector. He intends to plant Aren trees (Arenga pinnata) on his estates in various provinces, aiming to produce bio-ethanol.

The program has created considerable interest in the region. Local media in East Kalimantan reported on Hashim’s visit to the area, noting that he was accompanied by potential investors from Abu Dhabi, France and the Netherlands. The reports added that the businessman would also build an ethanol plant.

Hashim is blunt about his approach to business. “Basically we are opportunists. We set up new ventures as well as equity investment. If a company needs capital infusion, management, we have done that, as in Canada and in the US, where we became controlling shareholders.”

Globe Asia