In 1951,
Oei Wie Gwan, an
Indonesian businessman who immigrated from China in 1920, acquired NV Murup, a nearly defunct cigarette company in
Kudus,
Central Java. NV Murup's most popular brand of cigarettes was called
Djarum Gramofon (); Gwan shortened the name to
Djarum (needle). The company nearly collapsed in 1963 when its factory was destroyed in a fire around the time of Oei's death. Oei's sons
Budi and
Bambang Hartono took over the company and began the process of rebuilding it. In 2016, Djarum and several other tobacco companies in Indonesia were implicated by
Human Rights Watch for the use of
child labor without hand protection. Through its expansion into various other non-cigarette sectors, including food, drink, banking, garments, and technology, in the 1980s and 1990s Djarum became one of the top five largest conglomerates within Indonesia. By 2010, Djarum Group was the largest conglomerate in Indonesia. In 2004, Djarum acquired a 30-year
BOT contract from the government to develop and renovate
Hotel Indonesia in
Jakarta under the
Grand Indonesia superblock project. The Djarum badminton club,
PB Djarum, was founded in 1974 by
Budi Hartono. Its players, such as
Liem Swie King and
Alan Budikusuma, have won numerous championships for Indonesia. Djarum's
kreteks enjoyed a high level of popularity among smokers in the United States during the clove cigarette fad of the 1980s. Since 2009, most flavoured cigarettes in the United States have been banned following the passing of the
Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act. To circumvent the ban, Djarum's clove products are now marketed as "filtered cigars" and are wrapped in a black paper. They are packaged in boxes of 20. ==Non-cigarette business lines==