The Indonesia Stock Exchange in Jakarta on Jan. 29.
Photographer: Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP/Getty Images
Prabowo Puts Indonesia on Collision Course With Global Investors
A market meltdown and the saga of a contested gold mine is raising more questions about Southeast Asia’s biggest economy.
As Indonesia’s stocks plummeted last week, a group of executives thousands of miles away were starting to panic for a different reason.
Reports emerged that Danantara, a sovereign wealth fund that reports directly to President Prabowo Subianto, was considering a takeover of one of Indonesia's largest gold mines. Key investors of Jardine Matheson Holdings Ltd., a Hong Kong-based conglomerate that controlled the mine, were getting anxious, according to people familiar with the situation. The investors wanted Jardine to answer a simple question: Do you still own the gold mine or not?