Wilmar International

[weijian]

Wilmar's PR says that this 11.8trillion is a "security deposit" and will be returned if Supreme Court maintains the Jakarta Court judgement. The Jakarta Court judgement in April says Wilmar and 2 other companies been implicated are innocent but Indonesia authorities have since arrested a couple of judges and a Wilmar employee. Noticeably, Wilmar had released a PR denying that any of its staff have been involved in any investigations just a day earlier before the arrest.

This case has created a big hoo-haa in Indonesia and Indonesians are not exactly in a benevolent state of affairs right now. The Indonesian government and authorities are probably well incentivised to penalize big multinational corporations and divert attention/fury off their own performance.

Indonesia seizes 11.8 trillion rupiah from Wilmar Group in palm-oil graft case

[JAKARTA] Global palm oil company Wilmar Group has handed over 11.8 trillion rupiah (S$928 million) to the Indonesian authorities in the company’s ongoing fight against corruption charges tied to the country’s 2021 cooking-oil crisis.

In April 2025, however, the AGO arrested a chief judge, a court employee and two lawyers on suspicion of graft. The judge was said to have accepted 60 billion rupiah in bribes to issue favourable rulings for three palm-oil companies, including Wilmar Group.

Despite the court’s decision to acquit the companies, the AGO said prosecutors had sought financial penalties, including the one billion rupiah fine and 11.8 trillion rupiah in compensation for state losses. The AGO also arrested an employee of Wilmar in connection with the case in April.

https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/interna...graft-case

[postage paid]

Wilmar's PR says that this 11.8trillion is a "security deposit" and will be returned if Supreme Court maintains the Jakarta Court judgement. The Jakarta Court judgement in April says Wilmar and 2 other companies been implicated are innocent but Indonesia authorities have since arrested a couple of judges and a Wilmar employee. Noticeably, Wilmar had released a PR denying that any of its staff have been involved in any investigations just a day earlier before the arrest.

This case has created a big hoo-haa in Indonesia and Indonesians are not exactly in a benevolent state of affairs right now. The Indonesian government and authorities are probably well incentivised to penalize big multinational corporations and divert attention/fury off their own performance.

Indonesia seizes 11.8 trillion rupiah from Wilmar Group in palm-oil graft case

[JAKARTA] Global palm oil company Wilmar Group has handed over 11.8 trillion rupiah (S$928 million) to the Indonesian authorities in the company’s ongoing fight against corruption charges tied to the country’s 2021 cooking-oil crisis.

In April 2025, however, the AGO arrested a chief judge, a court employee and two lawyers on suspicion of graft. The judge was said to have accepted 60 billion rupiah in bribes to issue favourable rulings for three palm-oil companies, including Wilmar Group.

Despite the court’s decision to acquit the companies, the AGO said prosecutors had sought financial penalties, including the one billion rupiah fine and 11.8 trillion rupiah in compensation for state losses. The AGO also arrested an employee of Wilmar in connection with the case in April.

https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/interna...graft-case

After so many years, the cash flows can never match up to the income statement or balance sheet for this company.

The board always says that is because it is reinvesting in its business, and it has a diversified and resilient business model (that always needs constant reinvestment). Reason is not stated.

The board also says the reason for its low valuation is because the market does not understand its business model well, but then does nothing to educate the market after so many years.

Until some of these are cleared up, the stock will at best match the index.

Lots of contradictions in this company.

[weijian]

The Supreme Court is the final Court of Appeal, equivalent to Singapore's Court of Appeal (with the Supreme Court) and Malaysia's Federal Court. So this judgement and fine is final. But if you have means, you could still raise a judicial review like how Najib has tried.

Officially, Wilmar has said "compliance with prevailing regulations and in good faith". So if we read between the lines, we probably have a better idea of what exactly happened..

Wilmar found guilty of corruption as Indonesia’s Supreme Court overturns previous acquittal

In March 2025, the lower court acquitted the three companies of all charges, but by April, the AGO had arrested all four judges handling the case on charges of taking at least US$1.1 million in bribes to arrange a favourable verdict.

In a statement, the group said: “While Wilmar respects the decision of the Indonesian Supreme Court, it maintains that the actions taken by the Wilmar Respondents, during the period of a shortage of cooking oil in the Indonesian market, were done in compliance with prevailing regulations and in good faith.”

https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/compani...st-popular

[Shrivathsa]

One thing I am always puzzled by on Wilmar is how the stock price seems to skyrocket for no reason.

Attached is their stock price performance since Sep 30, 2025 when it hit a 52 week low of SGD 2.85.

   

In the last two weeks or so, it has gone from SGD 3.05 to SGD 3.47 today, so far.

The only thing I can think of is that the results are coming out and chances are that there is some dividend.

Having said that, the dividend yield is about 5%, so, it cannot logically lead to such a huge jump in price.

[Shrivathsa]

I feel that one really needs nerves of steel to hold Wilmar.

https://links.sgx.com/1.0.0/corporate-an...4f82658f90

The fascinating thing is the seemingly never ending series of 'new' news in terms of their subsidiaries.

Wilmar International Limited (“Wilmar” or “the Group”), Asia’s leading agribusiness group, reported a 24% increase in core net profit to US$693.9 million for the half year ended December 31, 2025 (“2H2025”) (2H2024: US$558.2
million), mainly due to strong performance from its Feed & Industrial Products segment.
The Group also enjoyed higher share of results of joint ventures and associates during
the period, mainly from its investments in China.

During the period, the Group recorded non-operating gains mainly from the recognition
of a US$1.14 billion gain on remeasurement arising from changes in interest in its
associate, AWL Agri Business Limited (“AWL”), although these were partially offset by
compensation payments and provisions made on the Group’s Indonesia operations, as
well as provisions made on two ongoing legal cases in China (Guangzhou and Dongguan
cases disclosed in the announcements issued by the Group’s 89.99% subsidiary, Yihai
Kerry Arawana Holdings Co. Ltd). Further, due to certain unresolved issues which were
recently discovered in the accounts of its Pakistan associated company that has led to
liquidity issues and raised doubts on its ability to continue as a going concern, the Group
has also made provision for losses in relation to this associated company. The net effect
of these one-off non-core adjustments is a gain of US$103.8 million.

So, Indonesia operations had compensation payments, China has provisions, Pakistan operations has going concern issue. It makes one wonder whether this is a case of being too big to manage as they keep discovering new issues every year.

[¯|_(ツ)_/¯]

Wilmar@$3.44

In case you wondering whether Wilmar is / should be blamed for the current hazy situation, the answer is no.

Wilmar does not clear land for new plant (plantation). Today, it use mechanical means to maintain existing plants (plantations).  It also has a robust playbook for firefighting with its community too.

This playbook shows that Wilmar is a good company with a shinning soul🙏

(Link to SGX)


Gratitude❤️

[weijian]

I happen to have some relatives who are small oil palm plantation owners in Msia and along the way, I have seen enough of large oil palm plantation owners in Johor (Kulim, Guthrie, IOI etc) to appreciate and understand some of the differences/nuances. Unfortunately, this is only restricted to Msia for now.

First and foremost, the initial canopy clearing of an aged plantation or virgin forest is almost always done by mechanical means, ie. those tractors with large mechanical arms (in chinese, it is called "神手"). After clearing the canopy, if the logs are from big rainforest trees (virgin rainforests), they will definitely be transported out for sale so that the landowner can offset some of the land preparation costs. But oil palm trees' trunks are useless for any downstream industrial usage and so they are kept on site. After pushing down + digging out the trees with their large mechanical arms, the tractor will arrange the tree trunks into neat rows before cutting them into pieces (~1m of length each). At this point, the small land owner and large plantation estate's actions are exactly the same. But after the trunk residual is left on the land cleared of its canopy, their actions start to differ....For the small land owner, they will burn them slowly over time. For the large plantation owner, the mechanical work continues as the 1m pieces of logs are shredded into smaller pieces and spread over the land. These shredded material (ex oil palm trunks) act as organic material mulching on the land and is part of the preparation work for re-planting. Eventually, both small land owner and large plantation estate will achieve their goal of re-planting new oil palm saplings, but the latter will probably take ~3months longer and cost at least 10-20x more for every acre of land.

Now back to the burning situation in Indonesia (Kalimantan/Sumatra). There are a mixture of small plot owners and large MNCs, and many of the MNCs actually buy the FFB (fresh fruit bunch) from the small plot owners. In addition, most clearance work is contracted out since you don't need to do it all the time. So there is also the question of whether these contractors are really following the "no burning" SOP if enforcement is laxed in areas that have very sparse populations.

[¯|_(ツ)_/¯]

Wilmar@$3.01


(Link to SGx)
With regard to Query 3 as to whether the 10 companies named below by the National Environment
Agency are subsidiaries or entities with which the Group has any material operational, supply-chain
or business relationship:
1. PT Bumi Andalas Permai
2. PT Bumi Mekar Hijau
3. PT Paramitra Mulia Langgeng
4. PT Sumatera Alam Anugerah
5. PT SBA Wood Industries
6. PT Hutan Lestari Raya
7. PT Bangkanesia
8. PT Buana Megatama Jaya
9. PT Mananjung Hayak
10. PT Baratama Putra Perkasa
Wilmar’s updated response is as follows:
None of the 10 companies named above are subsidiaries of Wilmar.
Wilmar confirms that the Group does not have any operational or supply-chain or business
relationship with companies numbered 4, 6, 7 and 9 named above, based on a review of the Group’s
corporate records, supplier and traceability data and counterparty records across all our Singapore
and Indonesian entities. Although Wilmar has no operational or supply-chain relationship with companies numbered 1, 2, 3, 5, 8 and 10 named above, it has sold fertilisers and diesel products for
heavy equipment to these companies. The revenue for such sales amounted to IDR371,289.9 million
(approximately USD22.5 million) for FY2025.

Gratitude❤️