On the graduation day of 22-year-old Polar Yanto Tanoto, his older brother, Sukanto Tanoto came and persuaded him to join Royal Golden Eagle. At that time, Royal Golden Eagle was struggling, waiting to transact into the pulp and paper industry. Sukanto offered Polar, his brother a generous amount of shareholding and a bright future if he can contribute his knowledge in engineering and loyalty to the company. Polar had been helping the company on and off since 13-year-old but he had his own plan and was ready to start his own career path with his engineering profession.
He finally decided to commit, and his decision was mainly based on his love towards his family and his brother.
The two brothers had a big dream- they wanted to build the biggest pulp and paper mill in Indonesia and – even in the world.
With his engineering background, Polar began to travel extensively to Taiwan and Finland to gather the latest cutting edge technology. He introduced the latest pulp making technology to Indonesia and systematized the process of paper production.
To oversee the constructions, Polar and his young wife moved to Porsea upon marriage. Their first two kids were born and spent their early childhood around the factory.
After finishing the pulp mill project in Porsea, the brothers decided to build Riau Andalan Pulp and Paper mill in Pekanbaru, which was said to be the biggest pulp mill in the region. Polar began to long stay in the Pekanbaru by himself when the project started.
The project was his passion and dream.
He went home only one to two days a week. Tired and exhausted, but he kept telling his wife about the latest establishment of the factories. He talked about the newly built central control room, and how he can now manage the huge factory within footsteps. He talked about how his foreign clients couldn’t believe he was the owner of the company at such a young age. He talked about the how he had clashes with his brother because he wanted to work with the residents and NGOs.
When the RAPP paper mill started operation, it was the largest pulp and paper mill in Indonesia. For the very first time, amazed by the efficiency and the capacity of the pulp making system, the foreign buyers were finally interested in buying the pulp and paper products made by the an Indonesian manufacturer.
Business started to grow. People started recognizing the name APRIL and Royal Golden Eagle.
Polar did not stop and continued to expand the business empire to China. He traveled to JiangSu, and he was once again in charge of the JiangSu paper mill project.
He devoted his time and energy to the company, which he considered as his love of life. Keeping the promise he had with his brother on the graduation day- Polar worked until the last day of his life when he passed away in an air crash during a business trip in Sep 26th 1997 at the age of 43.
Everybody knows what happened after Polar passed away. The man Polar once considered as a respected brother and business partner, stolen his assets and brutally oppressed his family until they exiled from the country.
Polar became the biggest loser, who spent his life on building one of the top pulp mill in the world, but his wealth was stolen by his brother who he respected until the end of his life. Leaving his wife and children to be bullied by no other but the same man, Sukanto Tanoto, his brother and business partner.
Of course, Sukanto also forgotten that he was the one that called Polar to change his schedule and caused him to take the deadly flight.
Today, Sukanto considered himself as a self-made entrepreneur. He talked about how he built the company on his own, how his business survived from the 1997 Financial Crisis. But provided very little details about building a successful factory because he never built it and did not know how to build it and forgot who built it. He repeatedly made up the time of his father’s death and of course he never mentioned about his brother, Polar, the man who built the company’s current money makers, the 3 pulp mills in Indonesia and China as if he never existed.
After Polar’s death, Sukanto was not capable of building any world class factory anymore. His greed stained Polar’s creations. He destroyed the good company policy by repeatedly physically and mentally attacked his employees and ignored the voice of the NGOs and residents living around the factories. Moreover, Sukanto embezzled the funds in Unibank causing the Bank to go bankrupt, and was wanted by the Indonesian government. (No one knows how he was able to get himself out of the wanted list.) His company, Asian Agri was caught evading taxes amount to USD 200 millions in Indonesia.
Bringing shame to the family. Many family members opted to take the last name, Lim instead of Tanoto.
Remember when you throw tons of money in publishing your fake success story, don’t forget about your brother, Polar Yanto Tanoto.
Stories/Information contributed by-
E.S.
T.R.
and U.N.
Dear Wendy,
I worked in this company’s pulp mill located in Kerinci, Riau province way back in 1997 until the financial crisis that management decided to downsize the construction people mostly expatriates (I was one of them). I vividly remembered the day when news of Mr. Polar early demise in an airplane crash, choking haze was annoyingly covered large swath of Sumatra that time and for months the sun was not visibly seen. Many, I heard from the Filipinos and other expatriates, that Mr. Polar was a generous boss and shared the bounty in form of bonuses. It was a sad day when he departed at an early age. My utmost sympathy to his family. I was really suprised to know what his brother sukanto did to Mr. Polar’s family after his death.
Dear Raul,
I’m so glad to see your comment. I believe my dad would also be very glad that you remember him.
Nor my family see the betrayal coming. Something beyond greed motivated Sukanto to contemplate those actions.
For years I struggled to accept my uncle’s betrayal. It sounds so much like a movie script and it torn my heart every time I had the thought that Sukanto was using my father’s hard earn money to torture and harass my family.
Growing up, I am also afraid of how this experience would affect the way I perceive the world.
It’s this blog and the responses I received make me understand that Sukanto is just an exceptional case. I hope my story can be spread and no one would be exploited by Sukanto in the future.
Don’t wory so much Wendy.
SKT is being slowly consumed by his own guilt, hatred and distrust, proven by his paranoia and outbursts.
His time is near and for a godless man, I wonder where he will go if heaven will not take him.
An interesting statement made once during Chile earthquake.Claimed god was helping because DP prices went up just when Bahia plant de-bottlenecking was completed.
Sigh earthquakes happens and people die, and claims god is helping …
Mr. Yang
Yes i think you are right. Unfortunately the Forbes article provides very little information about how Sukanto and perhaps now Anderson abuse the villagers
The whole article only provides the pretty numbers APRIL provides but none about what the villagers say.
It would be way more convincing if they photoshop Anderson shaking hands with the villagers rather than putting him inside the factory.
Only the locals know what is best for their lands and health
I came here from Forbes Indonesia after reading about your blog. You’re absolutely right about APRIL still being the only money maker of the Group. It sound to me that your father had devoted a lot and even his life to the company, and it was sad to see a man that got into the Forbes Rich List would bully and stolen his dead business partner’s assets. It’s completely nasty.
I encouraged you to keep doing what you are doing right now.
I don’t think the journalist who covered the story has read your blog carefully. I found him misused a lot of information. For instance, APRIL is definitely not a green company. Forbes seems to be siding with the rich.
I read this very interesting article about Sukanto’s son Anderson.
At first I was like “oh, finally his son is more normal. But then I read the article and basically what is son is doing is exactly what you wrote here. Maybe you should sue him for plagiarism?
I know that Anderson does not live by the mill because if he does, he won’t need to photoshop himself and now it looks like he has broken legs
http://forbesindonesia.com/berita-786-branching-out.html
OMG look at his legs lol
It is so funny, is the only way showing love to a paper company is living by the mill? Why does he need to pretend to be doing that?
Sorry, my english is not good Wendy. Saya turut bersedih atas kejadian yang menimpa keluarga anda. Saya adalah salah satu karyawan di RGE. God will gift the best when you pray.
I worked with in the company before and even though I don’t work directly for Pak Polar I met him once in a meeting. He is a very nice and calm boss very different from Sukanto. After he passed away, there are a lot of rumors about your family after your father passed away but we are too afraid to talk about it.
Dear Dona,
Thanks for your comment.
Can I know what would happen if the company found out you guys were talking about it?
Sincerely,
Wendy
It was my first year in the company when your father passed away. I know at that time some of my supervisors are being monitored and when there are people talking about your family some of my colleagues would tell us to keep quiet. I remember your father’s secretaries have really hard time in the company at that time.
Dear Wendy,
Your dad, Polar is a phenomenal man. He is an intelligent man with excellent leadership. It’s my honour to have the opportunity to work with Mr. Polar for 2 years.
Just like what you said, he’s not the kind of typical boss who just assigned the employees to complete the work. With his engineering knowledge, Mr. Polar always digged into the most technical details to fix the problems.
Many employees were so sad after learning your father’s sudden death.
I thought everything would stay the same after Mr. Polar’s departure but that was not true. All of a sudden, the company was under control by a brutal man who knows nothing about profession but corruption.
Many employees, including myself cannot endure the abuses from Mr. Sukanto, so we decided to leave the company. Mr. Sukanto and Mrs. Tinah are 2 very sad people. They have no trust to their employees, to their families and to each other.
God bless you and your family. No one would forget Your father, Polar.
Trust me. Without your dad, there is no way MR. Sukanto can build the billion company by himself. No way.