Minister of Finance Sri Mulyani Indrawati said that until now there are several debtors or big obligors of Bank Indonesia Liquidity Assistance (BLBI) who have not paid off their obligations to the state. One of the obligors mentioned by Sri Mulyani is the Texmaco Group. The government eventually confiscated 587 parcels of land covering an area of 4,794,202 square meters belonging to the Texmaco Group. The plots of land are located in 5 areas, namely Subang Regency, Sukabumi Regency, Pekalongan City, Batu City, and Padang City.
The Texmaco Group is one of the list of priority debtors of the BLBI Task Force which is included in the document for Handling State Collection Rights for BLBI Funds dated April 15, 2021. Its debt to the government even reached Rp. 29 trillion and US$ 80.57 million.
"By confiscation of assets, it is part of a small recovery from state assets with a total debt of IDR 29 trillion plus 80.5 million US dollars," Sri Mulyani said in a statement quoted on Saturday (1/1/2022).
Prior to 1998, the Texmaco Group was one of the companies that borrowed funds from banks prior to the 1997-1998 financial crisis. The banks he borrowed varied, namely Bank BRI, BNI, Bank Mandiri and private banks.
Sri Mulyani said these banks were then bailed out by the government during the 1997-1998 crisis. Some banks even experienced closure.
The Texmaco Group's initial loan amounted to Rp 8.08 trillion and US$ 1.24 million for the engineering division. Meanwhile, the textile division was Rp 5.28 trillion and US$ 256,590.
The loan is also in the form of other currencies, namely 95,000 pounds and 3 million Japanese yen. At the time of the bailout by the government, the debt was in a bad state.
The conglomerate behind the Texmaco Group is Marimutu Sinivasan. The Texmaco boss also denied Sri Mulyani's statement regarding BLBI arrears.
Marimutu Sinivasan is a textile and garment entrepreneur. His name has been included in the list of the richest people in Indonesia.
Its business also extends to the heavy equipment and machinery industry. His company was noted to have supplied trucks to the TNI. In addition to BLBI, he also had a case with Bank BNI regarding bad loans.
He is also known to be close to the second President of the Republic of Indonesia, Suharto. Before the fall of the New Order, his company obtained billions of dollars in loans from banks and government agencies for Texmaco.
In 2013, his name was included in a shell company scandal related to tax evasion whose confidential information was leaked by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).
Marimutu Sinivasan's name was listed among the 2,500 names of Indonesians found in the documents of Singapore's offshore service provider, Portcullis TrustNet.
In late 1997, TrustNet employee Stephen Breed came to Jakarta to meet the Texmaco chairman.
At that time Indonesia entered a crisis. Sinivasan, who is close to Suharto, has secured a US$2.2 billion loan from banks and government agencies for Texmaco.
On April 4, 1997, TrustNet established an offshore company in the Cook Islands named Pipeline Trust Company Limited. On August 13, 1997, TrustNet transferred the shares of the company to Sinivasan's name.
Sinivasan is the only shareholder. However, Pipeline uses its TrustNew Directcorp and Secorp subsidiaries as directors and secretaries.
TrustNet then sent Sinivasan a power of attorney on December 11, 1997. With this document, Sinivasan was able to open a bank account and transfer funds to and from an account in the company's name.
Sinivasan still can not be confirmed about this.
