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Bloomberg
Eka Tjipta Widjaja, who became a coconut and palm-oil trader at the age of 15 before building a multi-billion dollar empire with businesses spanning paper and pulp to financial
services, has died.
Widjaja, 98, passed away at his home in Jakarta on Saturday, said Gandi Sulistiyanto, a managing director at Sinar Mas Group. The founder of Sinar Mas was Indonesia’s fourth-richest person with a net worth of $9.3 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
The Indonesian tycoon of Chinese origin will also be remembered for the $14 billion default by his flagship Asia Pulp & Paper Co. after the 1998 Asian financial crisis. While several of Sinar Mas’s businesses were taken over by government, Widjaja managed to rebuild his empire, which employs around 380,000 people in Indonesia.