Hard work and a long process do not betray results. This is inspired by a successful Indonesian businessman Gabrialdi Thohir Alias Boy Thohir who owns PT Adaro Energi Tbk and is the son of Muhammad Teddy Thohir (Founder of Astra International).
His success as a successful businessman made him declared the 23rd richest person in Indonesia by Forbes Magazine in 2017 with total assets reaching US $ 1.41 billion, equivalent to Rp. 19.03 trillion.
Boy is known as a reliable entrepreneur in the coal mining industry. Although now he has many companies in various fields of industry. But it turned out that the first step in his step in the business world was acting as a land broker.
The story in the business world began when Boy returned from the United States (US) after completing his education to get a master’s degree at Northrop University.
In 1991 he founded the property business. At that time there was the Saharjo road construction project with Kuningan. Seeing this condition Boy then built a building whose intention could be rented when the road was ready.
The plan also received blessing, even his father was willing to give capital. But the plan failed because he only wanted to free a land of 3,000 square meters, while the minimum land acquisition provisions were 1 ha.
Finally he was brought by his father to meet senior Astra officials at the time such as Theodore Permadi Rachmat and Edwin Soeryadjaya. Boy was asked to present his thoughts on the opportunities for property business in the area which is now the Kasablanka area.
The Boy Proposal was accepted, he was asked to release a land of 20 ha. Unfortunately, because the economic conditions at that time were being disrupted, he could only free 3 hectares of land.
After a long time in the world of property business and arguably only a broker of land. Boy Thohir in 1992 was offered a coal proposal from one of his relatives from Australia to open a coal business in Sawahlunto.
The coal company was named PT Allide Indocoal. In that company Boy only has a 20% stake. But because coal commodities are still not booming, the company is not developing, even the most disappointing thing when its business partners from Australia must leave it back to Australia.
This is the beginning of the success of Boy Thohir, the blood of the business that has flowed in him makes Boy re-establish his business in the financing sector and vehicles with the name WOM Finance. WOM Finance fared far better than its coal business. Well this is where the turning point Boy becomes a successful entrepreneur.
Ometraco as the founder of WOM Finance turned out to be colapse in 2000. Boy finally bought his shares. It turned out that the company was growing.
Finally, around 2003-2004, BII was interested in buying WOM Finance with an attractive price offer of around US $ 150 million. Even though WOM Finance was built with capital of only Rp 5 billion.
Part of the money from the sale of WOM Finance he gave to his parents. Some of them bought coal mines in South Kalimantan and bought shares of PT Adaro Energy Tbk from foreign hands.
