JAKARTA -- Eka Tjipta Widjaja, the founder of one of Indonesia's largest conglomerates, has died at the age of 97, according to local media.
Widjaja was the third-richest person in Indonesia according to Forbes, with a net worth of $8.6 billion thanks to his holdings in Sinar Mas Group.
Born in China, he moved to Makassar in South Sulawesi when he was nine. As a teen, he helped his family make ends meet by selling biscuits.
After early success in commodities trading, he went on to found Sinar Mas, a real estate-to-paper conglomerate. Widjaja had long since stepped out of the limelight, and the group is currently run by his children and grandchildren.
Eka Tjipta Widjaja, the founder of Indonesian conglomerate Sinar Mas Group, in an undated photo. The group has interests in various industries, but is best known for Asia Pulp & Paper, or APP, one of the largest pulp and paper companies in the world, as well as the Singapore-listed Golden Agri-Resources, one of the largest producers of palm oil.
Sinar Mas is also active in real estate -- Indonesian-listed Bumi Serpong Damai is the country's biggest property developer by market value -- and has stakes in the financial industry as well as energy and mining.
The group has not been without controversies in recent years. Both its paper and palm oil businesses face accusations of environmental damage, while APP's $14 billion default in 2001 was one of the largest in Asia.
