The Company managed to turn its palm oil venture into a golden opportunity of developing palm oil business as its palm oil business since then has been steadily growing.

The history of PT Astra Agro Lestari Tbk (the “Company”) can be traced back to about 30 years ago when PT Astra International, its holding Company, established an agricultural business unit to develop a cassava plantation on a total area of 2,000 hectares. Later, it was converted into rubber plantation.

Seeing a good prospect of palm oil business, it decided to venture into the business in 1984 by acquiring PT Tunggal Perkasa Plantations, which had a total area of 15,000 hectares oil palm plantation in Riau province.

On October 3 1988, PT Astra International made its palm oil business unit as a new entity with the name of PT Suryaraya Cakrawala. In 1989, the subsidiary’s name was changed to PT Astra Agro Niaga. Then in 1997, PT Astra Agro Niaga was merged with PT Suryaraya Bahtera and changed its name to PT Astra Agro Lestari.

On December 9 1997, PT Astra Agro Lestari became a public Company by listing its shares on the Jakarta Stock Exchange and Surabaya Stock Exchange, which were later merged and named Indonesia Stock Exchange. At the initial public offering (IPO), the Company offered 125,800,000 shares to the public at the price of Rp 1,550 per share. At the end of last trading at the IDX last year, the Company’s share price was recorded at Rp  26,200  per share.

As the one of leading producer of palm oil, PT Astra Agro Lestari Tbk now manages a total plantation area of 263,281 hectares, including both nucleus and plasma (smallholders) plantation in Sumatera, Kalimantan and Sulawesi with the average age was 14 years. The total permanent employees of the Company as of the end of 2010 were 24,081.

The Company managed to turn its palm oil venture into a golden opportunity of developing palm oil business as its palm oil business since then has been steadily growing.