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In focus
- Sophomore season pressure for Danantara
- Sea Group’s latest earnings show a boost in profit
- Prediction markets face fresh scrutiny
Hello reader,
Working for Vietnamese state media years ago introduced me to a term I’d never encountered by then: “memorandum of understanding” or MOU.
It felt like every story I copyedited featured a state ministry or department signing an MOU with a foreign entity. The bureaucrats must have been plagued with repetitive strain injury from all the signatures they had to make.
Whenever I asked what these MOUs actually said or what the two sides would be doing after the signing, no one in the newsroom could say. Since then, I’ve associated MOUs with vague promises between two organizations to maybe do something together at some point.
The truth is probably more nuanced than that, but I was reminded of MOU theater when reading today’s featured story on Danantara.
Indonesia’s US$900 billion sovereign wealth fund was launched last year as a key piece of President Prabowo Subianto’s economic agenda. The MOUs have been signed, and the structures are largely in place. Now comes the hard part: proving it can deliver.
Dive into the full story for a look at what Danantara has actually deployed, where scrutiny is building, and how investors are assessing its second year.
Peter Cowan, engagement editor
Top Stories
1️⃣ Indonesia’s Danantara under pressure to show real results
Photo credit: Danantara
In 2025, Danantara deployed around US$12 billion across healthcare, energy, and public markets. This year, it aims to deploy up to US$14 billion.
But investors are still waiting for independent audits, closed transactions, and hard proof of returns before committing deeper capital. Questions are also mounting over governance, potential political conflicts, and whether the fund can live up to its green ambitions.
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