Jakarta. The government revealed Tuesday that Indonesia's sovereign wealth fund Danantara had caught the attention of the French mining giant Eramet, thus possibly adding the company to the list of foreign investors who wished to partner with the superholding.

Senior minister Airlangga Hartarto recently flew to Paris for a series of talks on Indonesia's membership bid to the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD). A ministerial press statement revealed that Airlangga had a separate meeting with Eramet's boss Christel Bories on Monday local time. The discussions mainly revolved around investment plans in Indonesia's nickel industry and electric vehicle (EV) batteries. It was during this meeting that Eramet reportedly told Airlangga that it wanted to work with Indonesia's newly minted sovereign wealth fund.

"... Eramet expressed interest to further invest in the Indonesian critical mineral sector with a local partner. Eramet also wishes to look for investment opportunities, particularly in the downstream industry sector, with Danantara," the press statement wrote.

It is unclear what sort of partnership was Eramet looking for in Danantara. The sovereign wealth fund consolidates assets of Indonesia's state-run enterprises, including the mining holding MIND ID, under its wings. The government had said that the nascent fund was open to establishing joint ventures with foreign investors. Senior economic advisor Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan claimed that an unnamed Emirati investor wanted to co-invest in a 10-gigawatt renewable energy project via a joint venture with Danantara.

Eramet's current operations in Indonesia lies in the Weda Bay Nickel, a joint venture that it operates with Chinese steelmaker and major shareholder Tsingshan. Indonesia's state-run gold miner Antam also has a 10-percent stake in Weda Bay Nickel. Antam is under Danantara's MIND ID. The Weda Bay Nickel, which lies in North Maluku's Halmahera Island, is an open-pit nickel mining site that represents 17 percent of the global production.

Bories has been constantly engaging with Indonesian senior government officials. In early February, Investment Minister Rosan Roeslani hosted Bories in his Jakarta office. Rosan claimed that Eramet was looking to explore new areas in South Sulawesi and Papua. He even told reporters at the time that Eramet was not looking to be "just a contractor, but the company wants to partner with a state-owned company to develop production in Indonesia". A few weeks later, President Prabowo Subianto appointed Rosan as the chief executive officer of Danantara while still letting the latter keep his ministerial post.

In the initial phase, Danantara is expected to consolidate the assets of seven state-owned enterprises: MIND ID; oil and gas giant Pertamina; electricity provider PLN; lenders BRI, BNI, and Mandiri; telecommunications company Telkom. It will eventually take over the assets of all other remaining government-run businesses by the end of this month. The massive consolidation will bring Danantara's assets under management to exceed $900 billion.

Danantara is starting out with $20 billion in initial investment cash which the government had collected from cutting non-essential spending items in the state budget. It will fund strategic projects on nickel processing, oil refinery, food production, among others. Rosan told reporters on Monday evening that projects to be funded by Danantara would undergo reviews, including due diligence, to make sure they were economically feasible.

Add as a preferred source on Google +