Indonesian recycler receives multi-million-dollar backing

JAKARTA (Scrap Monster): Plastic waste management company Bintang Timur, located on the Indonesian island of Java, has welcomed a US$ 4.5 million investment by Californian private equity firm Elixir Capital that will see the recycler grow its domestic business.

'Our investment will help the company to expand and create 50 new recycling sites in Java and in Bali, bringing market share back into locally-owned hands and catalysing job growth,' says Amir Azahar, managing director of Elixir Capital and the firm's regional head in South East Asia. It had proved 'difficult' for the Indonesian entrepreneurs to obtain support from local banks for their 'innovative work' in the scrap plastics sector, notes Elixir Capital's co-founder Arshad Ahmed.

Therefore, the ECM Straits Fund was launched recently to provide funding for fast-growing SMEs in Indonesia and other emerging economies in southern Asia. Ahmed stresses the 'dire need' for pioneers to be assisted with logistics, digital commerce and waste management in order to build a solid business and to 'support their local ecosystem'.

Courtesy: www.iol.co.za