When daddy was president, Bambang Trihatmodjo's companies enjoyed a steady flow of government contracts and state-bank loans. But now the deals and credit have dried up, exposing his empire as a poorly managed, over-leveraged house of cards.
Many pieces are likely to be seized by creditors or sold.
A team from Dow Chemicals was considering buying a stake in his failing Chandra Asri Petrochemical Centre, the biggest cash drain on his vast corporate empire, informally known as the Bimantara group. The time was January 1998. Suharto's grasp on power was weakening and the regional recession was in full swing. Chandra Asri badly needed a cash infusion, but Bambang and his partners didn't want to lose control. A former Bimantara adviser who attended the meeting says Bambang sat in typically detached silence as Chandra Asri's then president, Peter Gontha, told the Dow Chemicals team they would have to pay handsomely for a piece of the action.