The name of this Indonesian Nouveau riche is Aksa Mahmud, 65 years old. He was first stated in business in 1968 as young professional at the Kalla group. Ten years later, he became a director at PT Bumi Karsa, a Kalla group subsidiary. Even though he was considered in the peak of this professional career, he was dissatisfied with running other people’s companies and decided to get out on his own.
The technology graduate from Hasanuddin University in Indonesia founded his first company, CV Moneter, and began his journey to joint the ranks of the country’s top business players, establishing in eastern Indonesia. This nouveau riche retained on principle from his ethnic Bugis roots; never surrender. One of Bugis philosophy said;” It’s better to have a broken sail before your arrival than to have a broken ship’s bow before your departure”.
CV Moneter was an agent for Nissan cars in South Sulawesi. Later, he founded Bosowa Berlian Motor, a company he founded when he was appointed as a dealer for Mitsubishi Motor for Sulawesi. At the time, it was also an agent for Mercedes Benz and also dealt in used car trading. Taxis were the next venture, though his business units, control more than 600 taxis, followed his logistic business, and today there is a fleet of 12 ships, 500 trucks, hundred of buses and a warehouse with capacity of 15.000 tons.
In financial services, he founded Bosowa Multi Finance, Periskop Insurance and Bosowa Investama. At the moments Bosowa it self acts as a holding company with 30 subsidiaries. It employs more than 6000 employees.
He entered the cement industry in 1999 by founding Semen Bosowa, and built his second cement factory in Batam in 2006, with production capacity of 1.2 million tons per year. Calculating the value of his business is not easy, and his business expansion is non-stop. According to this nouveau riche, the total sales of Bosowa average IDR 3 Trillion a year, (about US $ 3 Billion), with 35% of revenue from automotive, 30% from cement and the rest from infrastructure and other units. With that big business, he has become the richest nouveau riche and the biggest conglomerate in eastern Indonesian with the wealth of about U.S. $ 150 Million.
*Nouveau Riche: a new rich people, almost similar to “Rags to riches people”, people who rises from poverty to wealth within his or her generation through courage, hard work, and determination – Not from other people’s hard work or any inheritance (Wikipedia).
