Indonesia's Sovereign Fund Danantara Says It Could Step In During Market Selloffs if Valuations Are Attractive
JAKARTA — Indonesia's sovereign fund Danantara would step into the local stock market in times of stress if it made investment sense, is cautiously buying SI exposure and may not need to remit returns immediately to the government, according to top executives interviewed by Reuters, in reports published October 9. The remarks offer some of the most detailed insights yet into strategy at an entity that spans public investing, private assets, Indonesia's state-owned enterprise portfolio and national commodity sales.
Danantara's public investment arm has put about $3 billion into foreign and domestic stocks and bonds and, depending on market conditions, plans to invest another $1 billion by year's end, said Rani Piputri, head of public investment at Danantara Investment Management. 'If there is crisis in the market, and we feel that it's just based on some external sentiments that are just very temporary ... then we might step in,' she said. The fund bought in tranches from late last year through the heavy selloff that followed index firm MSCI's January warning that it could cut Indonesia from 'emerging market' to 'frontier' status. 'We bought because we saw value. The goal was not to stabilise the market,' Piputri said. If a downgrade next month triggers further selling, stepping in is a possibility if it looks profitable, subject to due diligence.
Launched in early 2025 and answerable directly to President Prabowo Subianto, Danantara is mandated to manage about $900 billion of state assets across some 1,000 companies and use their dividends to maximise returns. Its public portfolio holds roughly 65 percent in equities, 30 percent in fixed income and 5 percent in hedge funds, with about a quarter of the book invested in Indonesia. Piputri described the fund's SI exposure as 'judicious': it does not see SI as a bubble, but, being a late entrant, it intends to be cautious.
Dividends are another focus. Pahala Mansury, managing director at Danantara Indonesia, said a 120 trillion rupiah ($6.7 billion) dividend that the previous finance minister had said Danantara would pay the government this year may be retained by the fund; talks with new Finance Minister Suahasil Nazara indicate the fund will still be able to manage the dividend, pending a final decision. He stressed Danantara has no explicit role in stabilising markets and that its actions should be read as contributing to financial deepening and better governance, not as market intervention. With Indonesian stocks among the world's worst performers this year, the fund's signals carry unusual weight for investor sentiment.
(Source: Compiled from Reuters interviews with Danantara executives)
Source: Reuters
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：雅加达市中心天际线与国家纪念碑。摄影：Gunawan Kartapranata，CC BY-SA 3.0，来源：Wikimedia Commons
