Eka Tjipta Widjaja

Widjaja was born Oei Ek Tjhong (–2019, born in Quanzhou, China as Oei Ėk-Tjhong) He was the son of a Celebes-based trader. Around 1930, he and his mother moved to Indonesia–then the Dutch East Indies–to join his father who had already settled in the city of Makassar, and he started helping his father to run a small shop. He was educated in a local Chinese school but left at the age of fifteen to work as a hawker. ==Career==

In his early career, Widjaja did various business, including trading cooking oil and agricultural products, coffee shop, pig rearing, bakery, and grave construction. During Japanese occupation, price controls devastated his cooking oil business. When Indonesia's war for independence against the Dutch crushed his commodity-trading business in 1949, he sold family jewelry to repay creditors and traded in his car for a bicycle. In the same year, he started Duta Pertiwi, a property developer and real estate business. Also in 1982, Widjaja acquired Bank Internasional Indonesia (BII) and founded PT Internas Artha Leasing Company. but due to the 1997 Asian financial crisis, it failed in April 1998 with a debt of US$4.6 billion (the largest foreign debt owed by an Indonesian corporation at that time) and was nationalized in April 1999. In 1990, Widjaja received an honorary doctorate from Pittsburg State University in Pittsburg, Kansas, United States. By the mid-1990s, Widjaja's best-known asset was a controlling stake in Asia Pulp & Paper (APP), a Singapore-based company listed on the New York Stock Exchange and the 10th-largest paper company in the world. APP has also been convicted of being involved in illegal logging in Cambodia, Yunnan Province, China, destroying ancient rainforest and the illegal felling of over 50 thousand acres (200 km2) of forest in Bukit Tigapuluh national park. As of 2003, Widjaja lived primarily in Singapore and had turned over day-to-day control of his businesses to his extensive family. ==Personal life and family==

Unlike many other Chinese-Indonesian tycoons, Widjaja was known to flaunt his wealth. He rode in fancy cars and wore a belt buckle encrusted with diamonds spelling out his name, "EKA". Widjaja had several wives and at least 40 children. His first wife was Trinidewi (or Trini Dewi) Lasuki, Sukmawati was previously married to her cousin, Rudy Maeloa, who was Eka's right hand who died in 1988. Teguh's son, Jackson Widjaja, is the CEO of Paper Excellence, Catalyst Paper, Domtar and Resolute Forest Products. These companies' pulp and paper capacity will be more than 11 million tons per year after the acquisition of Resolute. Teguh's brothers are or were in charge of other divisions; Eka's third son, Indra Widjaja (Oei Pheng Lian or Oei Beng Nien). Some of Eka's other wives and their children have been given their own business groups to manage. His seven children by one wife—Mellie Pirieh, who died in 2009 After Widjaja's death, his family continues to have a net worth of $9.7 billion and is ranked second on the list of Indonesia's 50 Richest List as of December 2021. ==Death==

Widjaja died on 26 January 2019, at his home in Menteng, Jakarta. He was buried on 2 February 2019, in the family cemetery in Karawang, West Java. After his death, there have been news on family disputes regarding his will(s). ==See also==