Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – Many profitable businessmen from Indonesia have damaged the world. The success tales of those businessmen additionally fluctuate from probably the most profitable to not a number of who had been really destroyed after their pioneers left.
As skilled by Oei Tiong Ham Concern. The Semarang sugar firm dominates the Asian and world sugar market.
Oei Tiong Ham Concern (OTHC) is a conglomerate based by Semarang-born Chinese language businessman, Oei Tiong Ham in 1893. OTHC has 4 sugar sector subsidiaries positioned in India, Singapore to London.
By the dimensions of the enterprise octopus, wrote Onghokham within the Oei Tiong Ham Conglomerate (1992), OTHC managed to export as a lot as 200 thousand tons of sugar to defeat Western firms within the interval 1911-1912. The truth is, on the similar time, OTHC managed to manage 60% of the sugar market within the Dutch East Indies.
Because of the dimensions of the enterprise, it is not shocking that Oei Tiong Ham had a wealth of 200 million guilders. For the document, 1 guilder in 1925 might purchase 20 kg of rice. If the value of rice is IDR 10,850/kg, it’s estimated that his property are value IDR 43.4 trillion.
Nevertheless, after Oei Tiong Ham died on July 6 1942, it was precisely today 99 years in the past. After that, varied issues occurred that plagued the corporate till it was compelled to break down in a single day.
The story begins when the heirs of OTHC filed a criticism with the Dutch court docket to sue the Amsterdam department of Financial institution Indonesia. They needed to ask for again the tens of millions of guilders deposited in De Javasche Financial institution (the forerunner of Financial institution Indonesia) earlier than World Battle II or 1942.
The aim of this request is as a result of the Indonesian authorities needs to make use of the cash to construct a sugar manufacturing unit. For heirs, the federal government has no proper to make use of inherited cash from the corporate.
Lengthy story brief, the declare was received by the heirs. The Dutch court docket required the federal government to return the deposit funds. The federal government additionally complied, however the household thought-about this to be the start of a disaster for the OTHC enterprise empire.
“It was this return that in keeping with Oei Tjong Tay (son of Oei Tiong Ham) prompted the federal government to search out excuses to confiscate all OTHC property in Indonesia,” wrote Benny G. Setiono in Tionghoa within the Political Swirl (2003).
Not lengthy after that, in 1961, the Semarang court docket all of the sudden summoned the shareholders of Kian Gwan, who was the primary driving pressure behind the OTHC conglomerate. This summons is to prosecute them in an financial trial as a result of they’re thought-about to have violated laws on overseas change.
Because of all of the heirs residing overseas and there was no protection, the Semarang court docket discovered OTHC responsible. Proper on July 10, 1961, proof associated to the incident was seized and confiscated by the state.
The confiscation included Oei Tiong Ham’s inheritance. In different phrases, all of the property of OTHC and the Oei household had been confiscated. The proceeds of this confiscation turned property for capital for the institution of a sugar cane BUMN named PT Rajawali Nusantara Indonesia (RNI) in 1964.
It was after the takeover by the state that the traces of the massive OTHC conglomerate enterprise for many years within the colonial period merely disappeared. The truth is, the echoes of Oei Tiong Ham’s descendants are now not heard, solely historical past.
[Gambas:Video CNBC]
(pgr/pgr)
