The first of Indonesia’s two state-owned investment funds, the Indonesia Investment Authority (INA), recently released its 2025 financial statement. I’ve been following the progress of this fund since its inception, and even though the INA now shares the spotlight with its much larger fellow investment fund, Danantara, I think it is still interesting to track and unpack the latest developments.
First, some headline figures. The INA ended 2025 with IDR 111 trillion in assets on its balance sheet. The rupiah is on the move lately which makes currency conversions somewhat imprecise, but that’s a little over $6 billion at today’s exchange rate. It is also about the same figure as 2024 which means over the course of 2025 the INA didn’t really grow its total assets so much as shift how they are allocated. Assets rose as the fund made more loans and invested in a number of subholding companies. This increase was offset by a decrease in the market value of shares the INA owns in Bank Mandiri and Bank Rakyat Indonesia.
Revenue rose 43 percent year over year to IDR 8.5 trillion, due to a combination of interest and dividend income as well as unrealized gains in the value of its subholding companies. These subholding companies are a very important part of the INA’s structure and function, so we will come back to them. The investment fund posted a year-end profit of IDR 7.4 trillion which is a little over $400 million at today’s exchange rate.
If we look at Singapore’s 2025 budget, we see that net investment returns from sovereign wealth funds like Temasek and GIC were around $21.5 billion, and they are a key component of Singapore’s fiscal strategy. Returns from these sovereign wealth funds are instrumental in funding the government every year. Looking at the INA’s 2025 income, it will be quite a while before it is on the same footing.
But that misses the point. The INA is not a conventional sovereign wealth fund. It’s not really a sovereign wealth fund at all, in the sense that sovereign wealth funds reinvest accumulate financial reserves and use earnings to support the state budget. The INA is more of a co-investment fund, designed to catalyze and direct investment into priority sectors, often by entering into strategic partnerships with foreign firms that might otherwise be reluctant to bring their capital and technology to Indonesia. For that reason, profit and loss are less interesting (to me anyway) than the subholding companies.
These are subsidiaries the INA creates and then uses to invest in priority sectors or create partnerships, often with foreign firms but also domestic ones, to co-develop projects. For instance, in 2021 the INA created a subsidiary called PT Maleo Investasi Indonesia which then invested in telecommunications tower operator Mitratel during its IPO. In 2021, it created PT Rafflesia Investasi Indonesia which has been used to channel investment, including from large foreign institutional investors, into the toll road sector.
PT INA DP World Investment was launched in 2023 to jointly operate the Belawan New Container Terminal in Sumatra along with the UAE’s DP World. PT Gaharu Investasi Indonesia was created in 2024 and has been investing in the private credit market. Its assets rose in 2025 indicating increased activity in this sector. These subholding companies, and the projects they invest in or co-develop, are really how we should be measuring the value of the INA.
As the INA grows and becomes involved in more projects, the number of subholding companies has increased. In 2025, 10 new directly owned subholding entities were created. One of the key ones is PT Akasya Investasi Indonesia, which is being used to back PT LBM Energi Baru Indonesia, a project underway at the Kendal Special Economic Zone in Central Java.
PT LBM Energi Baru Indonesia produces cathode materials for lithium-ion batteries, and is being developed in conjunction with foreign partners including big Chinese firms. This is part of Indonesia’s larger downstream industrialization program, and is a good example of the type of capital and technology-intensive projects, ones that involve strategic partnerships with foreign investors, that the INA was designed to support.
Another big project announced in 2025 involves the INA and Indonesia’s other state investment fund Danantara. Together with PT Chandra Asri Pacific, a major petrochemical producer that is part of a domestic conglomerate, they will be investing in a plant that produces precursor materials for downstream industries such as nickel processing. With an estimated value of $800 million this again highlights how these funds are being deployed to support nationally strategic projects.
When the INA was launched in 2021, it was not clear what exactly it was or how it would function. Over the last five years the picture has snapped into sharper focus with the INA developing a range of projects in strategic sectors such as digital infrastructure, toll roads, ports, healthcare, clean energy, downstream industrialization and capital markets. It has often partnered with foreign investors that have the capital, as well as the technology and know-how, to contribute to long-term growth.
How Indonesia balances the competing roles of two state-owned investment funds, when just a few years ago it had none, remains an open question. But given the way foreign investors and markets are currently viewing Indonesia, a fund like the INA that has spent the last several years carefully building its credibility is probably a good thing to have.
