Ciputra Group and Goenawan Mohamad Deny Buying Dahlan Iskan's Stake in Jawa Pos Group
Jakarta. A director at Ciputra Development, a listed property developer that is part of the Ciputra Group, and senior journalist Goenawan Mohamad on Thursday (16/11) denied buying media mogul and former State-Owned Enterprises Minister Dahlan Iskan's stake in the Jawa Pos Group.
Warta Ekonomi, a bi-weekly magazine, reported on Wednesday that Dahlan sold his entire stake in the Jawa Pos Group, a media-focused conglomerate, to the Ciputra Group.
"The news was inaccurate," Harun Hajadi, a director at Ciputra Development, told the Jakarta Globe via telephone interview on Thursday.
He declined to elaborate further.
Ciputra, the founder of his self-entitled business conglomerate, is not a newcomer to the media industry. Along with Sukamdani Sahid Gitosardjono, Anthony Salim and Eric Samola, he established Jurnalindo Aksara Grafika, which publishes daily business newspaper Bisnis Indonesia.
Sukamdani is the head of the family that controls two of Indonesia's oldest hotel chains, Hotel Sahid and Hotel Sahid Jaya Internasional. Anthony is the head of diversified conglomerate Salim Group.
The report also mentioned Goenawan – the founder of Tempo weekly magazine – as one of the recipients of Dahlan's shares and that his son, Hidayat Jati, replaced Dahlan's son Azrul Ananda, known as Ulik, as Jawa Pos newspaper's president director.
Both denied the news via social media.
"The news about Jawa Pos by @thejakartaglobe is not true. There hasn't been any stake sale of Dahlan Iskan [at Jawa Post]," the senior journalist said in his tweet on Thursday.
Berita ttg Jawa Pos oleh @thejakartaglobe itu tidak benar. Sampai saat ini, tak ada penjualan saham Dahlan Iskan. Ajaib, @thejakartaglobe mau siarkan berita palsu.
— goenawan mohamad (@gm_gm) November 16, 2017
Hidayat also denied the news via his Facebook account.
According to Warta Ekonomi's report, apart from selling his stake to Ciputra, the former minister allegedly sold some of his shares to his former Jawa Pos partner Eric Samola, whose family owns a stake in Tempo Inti Media, a listed media company that publishes Tempo Group's daily newspaper, weekly magazine, online news portal, children's magazine and lifestyle journals.
However, Eric passed away more than 17 years ago, in October 2000.
The report also said the Jawa Pos Group called an extraordinary general meeting of shareholders on Tuesday, which approved the resignation of Dahlan's son Azrul Ananda, known as Ulik, from his position of Jawa Pos newspaper's president director and Jawa Pos Group's commissioner.
The Jakarta Globe spoke to some sources familiar with the matter who requested anonymity, saying that Dahlan met other shareholders at Jawa Pos Group on Wednesday evening and decided not to go ahead with the sale of his shares in the group.
Dahlan did not reply to the Globe's inquiry via text message.
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