Prajogo Pangestu, founder of the Indonesian conglomerate Barito Pacific, is ranked No. 84 on the Forbes 2026 World’s Billionaires list, tied with MacKenzie Scott, with a net worth of $28.6 billion. He is one of the wealthiest people in Southeast Asia.
Prajogo Pangestu, born Phang Djoen Phen, was born on May 13, 1944, in Bengkayang, West Kalimantan, into a Hakka family from Guangdong, China. He attended Chinese schools in Indonesia and moved to Jakarta in 1965.
Net Worth and Rank
- Forbes 2026 list: No. 84 (tied with MacKenzie Scott), with $28.6 billion
- Later estimate: Wikipedia gives $43.41 billion, which it says makes him the wealthiest person in Southeast Asia
Building Barito Pacific
- 1970: he joined Burhan Uray’s timber company, Djajanti Group
- 1976: he became general manager of PT Nusantara
- 1977: he left to start his own business
- 1993: his PT Barito Pacific Timber was the largest listed company on the Jakarta Stock Exchange
- 2007: the company was rebranded to reflect its diversified operations
Today’s Group
Barito Pacific is engaged in forestry, plantations, oil and gas, coal, gold mining and geothermal energy. Through PT Barito Pacific Tbk he controls Chandra Asri Pacific, Indonesia’s largest petrochemical producer, and Barito Renewables, which owns Star Energy Geothermal, a leading geothermal company. In March 2022 Green Era, a Singapore-based company he controls, bought 33.33% of Star Energy from Thailand’s BCPG for $440 million, giving him full control.
Why It Matters
Barito Pacific has moved from timber into petrochemicals and renewable energy, and Prajogo’s fortune is largely the value of his listed Indonesian companies. His wealth is estimated at very different levels by different sources, and there is little detailed public biography.
Net worth figures change daily with share prices. Rankings here follow the Forbes 2026 World’s Billionaires list, with wealth measured on March 1, 2026.
Image: The Jakarta skyline at dusk, where Barito Pacific is based (file photo, 2026; Prajogo Pangestu is not pictured). Photo: Secretdriver / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
