Mar 19, 2025 04:38 PM IST
Marina Budiman lost the money as the stock of her company, DCI Indonesia, crashed.
Marina Budiman has lost her spot as Indonesia’s richest woman as her wealth dipped by $3.6 billion (over ₹31,100 crore) in just three days. Budiman, the co-founder and president commissioner of data centre company DCI Indonesia, lost the money thanks to a stock crash her company witnessed.
Her wealth had increased by roughly $350 million each day for three consecutive weeks. This stock surge made her the richest woman in Indonesia, with a combined net worth of $7.5 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Along with DCI controlling shareholders Otto Toto Sugiri and Han Arming Hanafia, Budiman’s wealth had risen by over $17 billion.
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Budiman, Sugiri and Hanafia, along with billionaire tycoon Anthoni Salim, hold 78% of DCI’s shares.
With the crash of DCI Indonesia’s shares, Budiman’s wealth dropped by half. This could be yet another addition to the country’s infamous boom-and-bust stock price run.
At Tuesday’s close, the shares had given up more than half the gains since the rally began mid-February.
Partly to blame is the large number of companies whose shares are thinly traded. Of the 2.4 billion outstanding, 80,400 shares changed hands by midday Wednesday in Jakarta, compared with millions at companies of a similar size in Indonesia.
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Wild price swings in stocks are a common and increasingly problematic feature of Indonesia’s equity market. Dozens of firms have moved by 1,000% or more in recent years, their shares seemingly unshackled from the underlying financials.
DCI closed on Tuesday with a market value of close to $17 billion, compared to last year’s revenue of $112 million and $49 million profit. The company trades at 416 times earnings, the highest relative to a group of peers tracked by Bloomberg.
DCI’s price swings “are largely a function of its tight free float,” said Mohit Mirpuri, a fund manager at SGMC Capital Pte in Singapore. “Bid-offer spreads are narrow, so any substantial positioning can move the stock significantly,” Mirpuri said.
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DCI was the worst performer as Indonesia’s benchmark stock index plunged on Tuesday and triggered a 30-minute suspension. Traders attributed the overall decline to factors including concerns over President Prabowo Subianto’s populist measures, forced liquidations and uncertainties over the finance ministry’s leadership.
“The selloff has been a bolt from the blue in many ways — the suddenness has caught the market by surprise,” said Nirgunan Tiruchelvam, an analyst at Aletheia Capital in Singapore.
Before the reversal in recent days, DCI may have benefited from investors betting that demand for data centers will continue to grow and help drive foreign investment. For example, Oracle Corp. is in discussions with Indonesia’s government to establish a cloud services center in the country, Bloomberg News reported Friday.
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