In 1952, after moving to
Jakarta, Salim expanded his peanut oil trading company by establishing connections with other Overseas Chinese businessmen in Hong Kong and Singapore respectively. His soap manufacturing company became one of the primary suppliers to the
Indonesian National Armed Forces. Salim later expanded his commercial activities into textile manufacturing and financial services, eventually being behind the establishment of Indonesia's largest private bank,
Bank Central Asia in 1957. Following the
Asian financial crisis, he was forced to give up control of the bank
to the government. In 1968, after a corporate merger, Salim gained the rights to an establish a corporate
monopoly on clove importation. He also established Bogasari, a joint venture with another businessman of Hokchia ancestry where the company later became Indonesia's largest miller, producer, and supplier of flour. Windfall profits from those two companies were said to have provided him with the expansion capital to finance the establishment of cement giant
Indocement in 1973. In 1992, Salim handed over management of the conglomerate
Salim Group to his son
Anthoni Salim. By 1997, the Salim Group presided over
US$20 billion in assets with more than 500 subsidiaries employing over 200,000 Indonesians. When the
Asian Financial Crisis hit, the conglomerate incurred US$4.8 billion in debt and had to give up control of Bank Central Asia in 1998 to the Indonesian government for nationalization. BCA was then 30% owned by two offspring of Suharto. During the
May 1998 riots, Salim fled to Singapore after a mob burned his home in
Jakarta; his son remained back in Indonesia to ward off the mobs and resurrected the family business. Salim eventually settled in
Los Angeles in the United States. ==Personal life==