23 Facts About Tomy Winata

Tomy Winata is an Indonesian businessman with interests in banking, property, and infrastructure, whose wealth comes from his business deals for the Indonesian Military.

Indonesian media reports have said Tomy Winata came from a poor family and was orphaned in his early childhood.

Author Sam Setyautama wrote that Tomy Winata had an adoptive father named Bisri Artawinata, who was a village head in Takokak, Sukabumi, West Java.

Conversely, author Joe Studwell wrote that Tomy Winata's "father built barracks for the Army although Tomy Winata prefers to say he got his start selling ice lollies and washing cars".

Tomy Winata came to national prominence in the late 1980s when he worked with the Indonesian Army's Kartika Eka Paksi Foundation to rescue a troubled local bank, Bank Propelat.

In mid-1997, in cooperation with Bank Indonesia Tomy Winata bailed out Bank Arta Prima, which was then merged with Bank Artha Graha.

Tomy Winata has said the mega-project is part of his mission to show the world that "Indonesia can".

Tomy Winata's vision is to make SCBD the "Manhattan of Indonesia".

Tomy Winata is active in the infrastructure sector, through the company PT Bangungraha Sejahtera Mulia, which obtained support from the governors of Banten and Lampung provinces to be the lead investor for the Sunda Strait Bridge project which, if it proceeds, will be the largest single infrastructure project ever undertaken in Indonesia.

Tomy Winata has business ventures outside of Indonesia, including in Timor Leste, where he was given approval in secret to build a hotel and shopping complex on government-owned land without having to submit his bid to a tendering process.

Besides his legal operations, Tomy Winata is a member of the so-called "nine dragons", a group comprising the major individuals behind Jakarta's gambling industry, despite the practice being banned in Indonesia.

Tomy Winata has long cultivated relationships with Indonesia's political elite, since the regime of former president Suharto, whose family was referred to as 'Cendana' after the name of the Central Jakarta street where they lived.

Tomy Winata himself acknowledged that Indonesia's ethnic Chinese conglomerates benefited from patronage from Suharto's New Order regime, but that doing business became more complex after the regime collapsed in 1998.

Tomy Winata has said he will be loyal to the government, whoever is in power.

Tomy Winata was close to former president Megawati Sukarnoputri through a business connection with her husband Taufiq Kiemas.

Economist Faisal Basri believed Tomy Winata was a donor to the presidential campaigns of both Megawati and Yudhoyono.

Author Christian Chua's 2008 book Chinese Big Business in Indonesia: The State of Capital claims that political patronage secured preferential treatment for Tomy Winata's businesses, with economist and future finance minister Chatib Basri alleging it is an "open secret" in Jakarta that cigars and other luxury goods in a shop at Tomy Winata's Borobudur Hotel were substantially cheaper because the owner did not have to pay taxes on the goods.

Tomy Winata did not attend because he wanted a more private meeting and instead sent two of his employees.

Trie requested funds for the event, so Tomy Winata sent $200,000 in travelers checks via his right-hand man, Santosa Gunara.

Tomy Winata has cooperated with the Indonesian Narcotics Agency to organize a drug rehabilitation program in TWNC.

Tomy Winata was involved in a high-profile libel case against Tempo news magazine after it ran a cover story questioning whether he was involved in the February 2003 burning of the Tanah Abang textile market in Jakarta.

Tomy Winata filed libel charges against PT Tempo Inti Media, editor-in-chief Bambang Harymurti, deputy chief editor Toriq Hadad, reporters Ahmad Taufik, Bernarda Rurit and Cahyo Junaidi, publisher Fikri Jufri and corporate director Zulkifli Lubis.

The cable alleged that Tomy Winata had funneled money to Yudhoyono for "questionable political purposes".