GROWTH STORY

Northstar Group's cofounder and managing partner PATRICK WALUJO sees opportunities in crisis.

- ELISA VALENTA

One of the hot stocks on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) over the last year has definitely been PT Bank Jago – previously PT Bank Artos. After being pretty much dormant since its IPO in 2016, its shares were priced at Rp 4,300 at the end of last year, a more than twentyfold increase since Patrick Walujo and Jerry Ng acquired 51% of the shares of the small lender in August 2019. Patrick is the cofounder and managing partner of the private equity company Northstar Group, and Jerry is one of Indonesia's top veteran bankers and a former president director of PT Bank BTPN. At the current share price, Bank Jago is already among the top ten largest banks by market capitalization and has made Jerry one of Indonesia's 50 richest in Forbes's Richest Indonesians list for 2020. Despite the bank still having a negative bottom line – at the end of the third quarter last year, it booked Rp 105 billion in losses, up from the same period in 2019 of minus Rp 19 billion – its net interest income significantly improved so its likely investors aren't betting on the current performance of the bank but instead are staking their money on Patrick, and Jerry's reputation for creating value.