The company also acquired Berau Coal Energy from Asia Resource Minerals PLC, a major mining group founded by Nathaniel Rothschild, in a takeover initiated by Fuganto Widjaja.

Sinar Mas businesses operate in different sectors such as pulp & paper, real estate, financial services, agribusiness, telecommunications, and mining.

In 2001, Asia Pulp & Paper (APP), the subsidiary of Sinar Mas, called a standstill on $14 billion worth of bonds and loans and stopped repaying its debt, including interest payments, in what is still the largest default to foreign investors in Asian market history.

[7] On September 7, 2018, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) openly recommended that companies and financial investors end their business relationships with APP and its affiliates.

Since July 2015, the Berau Group has brought 4 separate rounds of scheme of arrangement / moratorium proceedings, with terms which have been described as “frankly insulting” at a time when global coal prices had doubled.

[11] Smart Tbk, the palm-oil producing subsidiary of Sinarmas Group, has been accused by Greenpeace of causing deforestation of Indonesian rainforests.

[12] To investigate this accusation, Smart Tbk has appointed Control Union Certification and BSI Group,[13] assisted by two researchers from the Bogor Agricultural Institute.

[17] In March 2010, Nestlé faced a public reputation crisis over its procurement of palm oil from Sinar Mas whose plantations are reported to be the cause of widespread rainforest and orangutan habitat destruction.

[18] To avert the public reputation disaster, Nestlé quickly moved to stop its palm oil procurement from Sinar Mas.

These practices are inconsistent with our corporate responsibility commitments"[26] On 7 June 2011, Greenpeace launched "Barbie, It's Over", a global campaign to bring awareness and encourage Mattel to switch pulp and paper producers.