Photo by hanson International

JAKARTA (TheInsiderStories) - Indonesian Court granted Benny Tjokrosaputro’s lawsuit against U.S bank Goldman Sachs International on Tuesday (21/11). This case has been running for more than a year.

Judge chief of Jakarta Court, Achmad Guntur saidThe assembly declares that the share transaction is null and void. The assembly stated that the transaction of shares of PT Hanson International Tbk (IDX: MYRX) by Goldman is against the law.

On Sept. 8, 2016 the businessman filed a lawsuit claiming to be the rightful owner of 425 million shares (after a stock split of 2.125 billion shares) at Hanson International. Apparently the stock has changed hands to Goldman Sachs.

On Jan. 24, 2017, Goldman Sachs filed a US$1 billion counter lawsuit Tjokrosaputro who is seeking damages from the U.S lender for conducting what he called “unlawful” trades in the shares of a property firm.

Harjon Sinaga, Goldman’s legal counsel said his client bought the shares of the Hanson International legally in the negotiating market of Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX). Goldman buys the company shares in 2015.

Later, Tjokrosaputro transacted his shares to companies from the U.S’s Platinum Partners through a repurchase agreement or repo to get a loan. Under the agreement, the shares should still be in the hands of Platinum.

But it turns out Platinum also tripped the problem. Late 2016, the company’s managers were arrested for fraud up to $1 billion.

Commenting on the verdict, Goldman Sachs legal counser Mohamed Idwan Ganied said will file a legal action against the South Jakarta District Court‘s decision to grant Tjokrosaputro’s claim in part.

“Most likely we will file a legal action,” he said after the hearing by adding the legal effort that can be taken is an appeal to Supreme Court Indonesia.

Benny Tjokrosapuro

Hanson International was incorporated on July. 7, 1971. Hanson’s main business is property with land bank of more than 3,000 hectares located in Greater Jakarta area. The company along with its subsidiaries has made steady progress in the development of land banks into residential and commercial areas.

Hanson has signed strategic Joint Venture (JV) agreements with Ciputra Group, other local property developer to develop close to 500 hectares of land in Maja Raya, Greater Jakarta. Hanson has also secured JV agreements with a consortium of prominent developers in Indonesia to develop 850 Hectares of land in Serpong, Tangerang.

Recently, Hanson International announced to issue new shares without preemptive rights in order to increase the capital structure of the property company. Based on the company’s information disclosure to IDX, the transaction value amounts to Rp1.01 trillion by issue 7.98 billion of shares with an exercise price of Rp 127 per share.
Later, the new shares will be fully absorbed by Tjokrosaputro who is the President Director of Hanson International. The tycoon will be used the fund to make additional paid in capital at PT Mandiri Mega Jaya, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of MYRX.
With this transaction, his share ownership in Hanson International will increase to 18.56 per cent from initially 10.42 per cent.
This is not the first time Tjokrosaputro has been involved in capital markets. He founded Hanson International on July 7, 1971 under the name of PT Mayer Tex-originally engaged in textiles-because the main business of his Family was originally batik cloth.

Tjokrosaputro himself is the grandson of Kwee Som Tjok (Kasom Tjokrosaputro), founder and owner of the famous brand batik brand, Batik Keris in Solo.

In 1991 Mayer Tex changed its name to PT Hanson Industri Utama Tbk, then changed to Hanson International in 2004. Through the holding company Hanson Group, the business development of Tjokrosaputro Family sped up to cover 41 business fields. Started off, textile and garment factories, synthetic fiber factories, properties, hotels, construction, shoe factories, air freight, and several banks.

In 1996, the total assets of the Hanson Group were estimated at Rp1 trillion. However, the 1997-1998 financial crisis made Pansor Hanson fade. Hanson also changed their business line to Coal.

After that, he won a contract from PT Perusahaan Listrik Negara worth Rp28 trillion for the supply of coal for 20 years to six of state-owned electricity producer.

Bank Century

However, to develop the business, Benny must be involved in the case of frying PT Bank Pikko Tbk (IDX: BNPK) shares. The case stems from an increase in trading volume of the small lender shares between January and February 1997.

On Dec, 2014 Bank Pikko and PT Bank Danpac merged to PT Bank CIC Tbk and change the company name become PT Bank Century Tbk. Now the lender shares majority owned by Japan’s J-Trust Bank and change the name become PT Bank JTrust Indonesia Tbk (IDX: BCIC) .

The capital market watchdog at the time reported Tjokrosaputro had made a share transaction to expand its holdings to 4.5 million shares in Bank Pikko through PT Multi Prakarsa Investama Securities by using the name of 13 other parties.

Speculators who then predict the price of Bank Pikko’s shares will go down and make short selling transactions. As a result, 52 of 127 securities companies failed to surrender the shares of Bank Pikko and sanctioned the businessman to return the profit from Bank Pikko transaction amounting to Rp 1 billion to the State Government.


In addition, Benny is also known to include assets assets of Mandiri Mega Jaya to the stock through Hanson with backdoor listing scheme by way of rights issue worth Rp4.59 trillion in 2013.

Hanson shares are owned by PT Kencanaraya Nusasemesta (28 per cent) and PT Dinar Sekuritas (19.5 per cent) and the rest by the public. Kencana is a company also owned by Tjrokrosaputro and on August 11, 2003, Kencana released the ownership stake in Hanson.

Written by Linda Silaen, Email: linda.silaen@theinsiderstories.com

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR