The French Indo-China bank had been established in Hongkong for over one hundred years. As its name indicated, the banks business had originally been founded on the needs of the then French colonies in the South East Asia and Frances trading comptoirs in Imperial China.
Their offices were located in Swire House, a thirty floor tower on Hongkong Island next to the Mandarin hotel on Connaught Road.
Although Ennis liked the Mandarin and it would have been more practical for him, he preferred the Kowloon side of Hongkong, there were fewer offices and the general atmosphere was easier going, though there were more tourists. It also gave him the excuse of indulging in the pleasure of riding the Star Ferry across the straights to Central Quai and the business area of the colony, on Hongkong Island.
He stayed at the Peninsular Hotel; it was expensive and highly over rated. Nevertheless, he enjoyed the ride in one of their Rolls Royce limousines, which the hotel used as shuttle service to and from Tai Tak airport into Kowloon, for their guests.
That morning the weather was fine and clear with a very slight breeze. There was a feeling of spring about as he walked out of the Peninsula and strolled past the Space Museum down Salisbury Road to the Star Ferry terminal. There he entered the second-class ramp and paid two HK dollars at the turnstile for the short ride on the Morning Stars lower deck for the ride across to the island.
His appointment was at nine thirty, and he found himself with the tail enders of the morning rush hour. They were typical of office workers that could be seen almost anywhere in the world, except that in Hongkong the Chinese office workers had a starched, uniform appearance. Perhaps it was because of their attire, short-sleeved shirts and slacks for the men, the women mostly in blouses and black straight skirts, only the odd chic businesswoman adding some colour, dressed in a smart designer suit.
The occasional pin stripe was for the higher ranking managerial staff. There were one or two Europeans in suits, real Brits. The majority of Europeans opted for first class on the upper deck. Ennis preferred the lower deck, a boyish pleasure he thought, being nearer the water; he leaned over the rail and watched the grey waves swirling by.
He never ceased to marvel at the extraordinary sights of Hongkong harbour. Junks mixed with lighters and cargo ships, the eternal criss-crossing of the ferries and hovercraft. The remarkable and ever changing skyline set against the surrounding hills. In the background a 747 of Cathay Pacific lifted slowly into to sky. There was the ever-present odour of the sea mixed with indefinable Chinese smells.
He was a little early and stopped by at the Mandarin to take a coffee in the lobby and read a newspaper. The appearance of the guests and visitors recalled to Ennis images of the City of London, men attired in British style blue pin stripe three pieces, carrying black brief cases and holding copies of the Times of London.
Ennis observed disdainfully the sheep like appearance of the crowd, before realising with unease that he wore the same uniform. He had been careful that morning choosing his clothes, remembering to conform to their dress codes of the banking fraternity. It made them feel more at ease, believing they were with one of their own species.
Ten minutes later, he walked over the pedestrian bridge that crossed Ice Street that linked the two buildings. He then took one of the lifts to the 21st floor, where announced himself to the receptionist.
‘Good morning, I have an appointment with John Howard.’
‘Ah, yes, he is expecting you, please come in.’
Well that makes a change at a bank; someone is pleased to see me, Ennis smiled to himself. In reality, it was not surprising after the night he had spent together John Howard in Taipei the previous week.
It was one of those curious accidents of fate that had introduced John Howard to Ennis in Taipei. Sutrawan had arranged one of the regular drinking parties that he liked to hold with his clan. It had commenced in the presidential suite of the New Mandarin Palace in Taipei, a vast lodging of over four hundred square meters with seven bedrooms, kitchen, dining room, and reception rooms. The group included all the cronies Thomas Lee from Manila, Robbie Tan from Singapore, Danny Lau, Scarface Fung from Taipei, Sammy Sung from Vancouver and several others.
Ennis came up from his relatively modest executive suite to join the group. It was just before seven in the evening and he was about to sip his first XO, when the doorbell rang. There were no formalities, being nearest to the door at that moment he did the welcoming act.
‘Hello, is this Mr Boon’s room?’ said the new arrival cheerfully. He was European of about forty years old, blond, good looking in a dark blue business suit.
‘Yes, come in, I’m John Ennis,’ he said introducing himself.
‘I’m John Howard.’
Ennis was surprised because Sutrawan did not have many European acquaintances, except for one or two Americans who from time to time in Jakarta joined the group.
Thomas Lee made the formal introductions, announcing John Howard, from French Indo-China Bank in Hongkong, and Ennis from the Banque de Berne.
Here we go again, Ennis groaned to himself. He did not mind when that was announced to a Taiwanese, who would not have known the difference, but to a senior banking executive from French Indo-China, it could be a little bit embarrassing. He immediately clarified the information to Howard explaining that he was with Papcon, which was only linked by a minority share holding to Banque de Berne.
‘Papcon is specialised in industrial promotion and development. We’re not in the banking business,’ explained Ennis smoothly.
As a banker, John Howard was not at all disappointed by that news; on the contrary, he found it a useful introduction, a potential business opportunity. Industrial projects need loans and financial services; he was there to provide them.
He explained to Ennis that he was banks business development director in Hongkong, managing new corporate accounts in the whole East Asian region, which included Indonesia, and that he had been trying to get an introduction, to Sutrawan’s gang, as he called them, for a long time without success. In fact, this would be his first out of business hours meeting with Sutrawan himself. When Howard discovered that Ennis frequented the inner sanctum he figured out that he could useful, whilst a similar thought ran through Ennis’ mind, meeting a key person from the French Indo-China in such circumstances would ease future relations.
At first Ennis had imagined that Howard would be a bore, as they made conversation around business subjects. To his surprise, he quickly discovered that Howard was quite unlike his more staid banking colleagues. He was fun loving and did not make the excuse that he would have to leave the party early because of a business appointment the next morning. He was quick to laugh and was completely at ease among Chinese.
That evening was arduous, even for hardened members of the Sutrawan clan. Scarface Fung had arranged a dinner party at one of his hotels in Peitou, a resort area, twenty kilometres to the north of the city. Many years previously, during the Korean and Vietnamese wars, it had been a notorious vice area of Taipei city. Times had changed, and it had been transformed into a sedate tourist area, offering golfing weekends and relaxation, the visitors were mostly Japanese tourists and businessmen.
Peitou still had a good number of nightclubs and restaurants that offered floorshows and dancing. Vice had not entirely disappeared, it had become much more discreet and catered to an up market Japanese and local clientele.
Scarface Fung was a powerful member of one of the biggest Chinese secret societies, Taiwan’s equivalent of the Japanese Yakuzi, or Mafia. Fung controlled the largest trucking and transport company on the island and with the complicity of the police ran a number of rackets, which included gambling and prostitution. He was called Scarface with reason; above his left cheekbone was a scar that ran to the bone, showing a white crescent, half-a-centimetre wide and about three long. Ennis felt that danger radiated from Fung.
He was the owner of the hotel to which he had invited them that evening. A feast had been laid on with attra
ctive hostesses and a five-piece band, in a private banqueting room on the first floor. They arrived in a small fleet of black Cadillacs, already in high spirits after their warm up in Sutrawan’s suite. Ennis rode with Howard in the leading car, flattered as privileged guests by Sutrawan and Fung.
During the thirty minute ride Fung confided to them both in his broken English, that if ever they were in trouble with the police in Taiwan, they had simply to mention his name and everything could be arranged. Ennis never had the opportunity to test the validity of his claim, but he had not the slightest doubt that it was true.
Fung’s hotel had two hundred rooms, and seemed to be mostly frequented by Japanese tourists, there were no westerners. It catered for middle to upper class tourists and by the island’s standards was very comfortable.
Once in the hotel, John Howard was joined an attractive but wild looking Chinese girl, whom he obviously already knew, which puzzled Ennis. She was far from the type of girl that he imagined Howard would like to be seen with, dressed it a loud leopard skin patterned off the shoulder dress that clung to her shapely body. Her hair was long black and tousled. Howard in his pin striped bankers suit introduced her to Ennis, as if she were the Princess of Wales.
‘John, this is Mei Li, Mei Li this is John,’ Ennis had the greatest difficulties in suppressing a burst of laughter.
He explained without the least sign of embarrassment that he had met her a couple of evenings previously, when he was out with Thomas Lee’s friends. Mei Li did not speak English too well, but she made up for it in Chinese. She was the life and soul of the party. To the great amusement of them all, she hung on to John Howard as if she had the intention of never letting him go.
Howard, after initially giving the impression of being a staid British bank manager, soon let his hair down after a few drinks, and was obviously stimulated by Mei Li. The bottles came fast and furiously and the evening rapidly turned into a drunken riot, and a wild Karaoke. John Howard joined the band on the small stage, accompanied by Mei Li in a bawdy version of I did it my way, to the encouragement and ribald shouts of the party, and to the great pleasure and enjoyment of Sutrawan.
In between drinks, Howard managed to tell Ennis that he was returning to Hongkong the following afternoon, suggested that they get together the following week to talk about business.
It was by an odd coincidence that they had several things in common, including the fact that they both had both married French women and had lived in France for many years. Howard had been transferred to Hongkong, where he had lived for four years. His wife, like many French women, kept a short leash on her man, the result was that on his occasional trips to Taipei he took the opportunity to let his hair down. He was also well out of sight of the conservative banking community of Hongkong, where rumours and stories travelled fast.
One week later in Hongkong, Ennis felt that he had made a good friend. But as he followed the perfume of the attractive receptionist down the carpeted hallway, Ennis started to have doubts, he wondered if Howard would be different now that he was back on his home ground, as people sometimes were.
‘Hello John, how are you, great to see you, it’s good you could make it to Hongkong.’
There was none of the sheepishness that might have been expected, Ennis was pleased to see that he had not changed at all.
‘That was a wild evening we had in Taipei last week,’ he said laughingly, ‘when I got back I hadn’t recovered from the booze and was still feeling lousy, and on top of that I had a reception at the embassy followed by a dinner, my wife was highly suspicious of what I had been up to in Taipei.’
‘I had a couple of days to sleep it off luckily,’ Ennis replied.
He was not the least bit embarrassed by their shared knowledge of that evening.
‘Would you like some tea or coffee?’
‘Coffee.’
‘How long have you known Sutrawan, John?’
‘Well it’s about three years now.’
Ennis explained how he first met Sutrawan, he told him exaggerating a little on how long he had known him and the exact details of their business relationship. He outlined the consortium arrangements and described the Barito project, explaining that they were in the process of setting up the banking pool to finance the construction of the project.
Ennis did not miss Howard’s sharpened interest; it would be a personal coup for Howard, if he could introduce the French Indo-China into the project on Sutrawan’s side. He explained to Ennis that the Paris end was not his business, though Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur reported to him. The latter being their main branch in the South East Asian region, and Jakarta a representative office run by Patrick de Verre, who, so far had not been involved in the Barito business.
‘You know John our business in Hongkong is the most important in the Far East, in fact this office coordinates all activity in the Far East,’ he paused reflecting, then went on. ‘What I’m interested in, is developing business relations with Sutrawan’s Bank Surabaya Mas, and his finance company Weihao Finance here in Hongkong. There’s also Gao’s company in Taiwan, and in Thailand where he is building a new mill. ‘
Ennis saw his eyes sparkling at the thought of the business prospects, which could be developed with Sutrawan.
‘If I could become involved on the Indonesian side we could certainly help in structuring the equity and loans, we could, in cooperation with de Berne, organise Sutrawan’s part from Hongkong, which would avoid a lot of complications in Paris.’
Ennis described how the Taiwanese, together with Sutrawan had worked with the Bank of America, but most of their non-loan business was handled by Sutrawan’s own bank, Surabaya Mas. It was certain that a lot of hot money from Taiwan and Indonesia and was laundered by the bank, principally from illegal logging, which was then transferred to more respectable banks and recycled into clean operations and investment loans.
It was not that clear at that point in time how French Indo-China could fit into the business, but Ennis felt instinctively that through John Howard there was an advantage to be gained, relative to the slow moving Parisian banks, with their narrow vision of business that was tied to domestic politics.
He decided to pursue the idea and try to determine the exact motives behind his introduction to John Howard by Sutrawan. He strongly suspected that it was no fortuitous accident, without any doubt there had been some oriental match making.
The Timber Producers & Converters Association of Indonesia held its annual conference at the Hilton Hotel in Jakarta. It was presided by Jani Sutrawan the association’s chairman who was considered by many as the timber king of Indonesia, he was also Chairman of the Bintang Agung Group and the ASEAN Timber Producers Association.
Sutrawan’s special relationship with the army generals, which went back to the famous Diponegoro Division and Kostrad, had provided his main political base for business. He had become, on behalf military business concerns, deeply involved with Japanese and Taiwanese companies in logging and forestry concessions.
Riady, together with Ennis, were guests of Bintang Agung. They were seated in the front row facing the panel, which included Sutrawan’s competitor Bob Husino, and the Minister of Forestry Wihartjo.
Sutrawan standing at the rostrum opened the proceedings.
‘Gentlemen plywood not so long ago exports from Indonesia were just two hundred thousand cubic meters; these have now risen to eight million cubic meters. In the Philippines, plywood production has declined, to two hundred thousand cubic meters.
‘This means that Indonesia is the biggest exporter in South East Asia, exporting four times more than all of its neighbours together!’ He stopped and smiling and puffed on his Kretek, the audience taking the cue broke into applause.
Sutrawan went on with his presentation describing the development and growth of the plywood industry in the country. The industry had started its real development in the eighties and its expansion had been very fast. There were now over one hundred pro
ducers with an annual production of eight million cubic meters, about twenty percent of the world’s plywood production with about seven million in exports, or eighty percent of the world trade.
Ennis had heard the story before; he glanced around at the audience and saw a grey haired man with a tanned weather beaten face, seated on the other side of the centre aisle staring at him.
Sutrawan droned on with his industry jargon whilst the guests fidgeted flicking through their printed programmes.
Looking around again in the direction of the grey haired man, Ennis saw him his wave his hand, in a hello sign.
Finally Sutrawan concluded his speech to a relieved audience and a round of hearty applause and a coffee break was announced. Ennis left Riady as he headed towards the refreshments, where he then saw the grey haired man holding a cup of coffee, and who turned towards him.
‘Let me introduce myself, my name is Ohlsson, you’re John Ennis I believe?’
Ennis nodded.
‘I’ve heard a lot about you.’
‘Oh!’ said Ennis surprised.
‘I’m interested in forestry, let’s take our coffee with us, we can sit down over there.’ He pointed towards a corner giving Ennis no chance to refuse.
‘As you know John, you don’t mind if I call you John...good! What your boss has said is interesting. Scandinavian wood has become increasingly expensive, and increasingly difficult to harvest. Your factories have become less and less profitable...so you’ve decided simply to sell or shut down a whole series of plywood plants.’
‘First he’s not my boss, but I suppose you’re right,’ said Ennis grudgingly, unsure of what Ohlsson wanted.
‘In Finland you must use every single cubic centimetre of wood, so, the plywood mills should be next to the pulp mills, which is not actually the case, because the pulp mills are on the west coast of Finland and the plywood mills in the East.’
‘You seem to be well informed.’
‘Yes, as I said, forestry is my interest, tropical forestry! Although what goes on in Scandinavia is not unfamiliar to me, I’m a Swede.’
‘I see.’
‘Certain Finns have discovered that wood exists in other parts of the world. For example, here in Indonesia, where there are virgin forests, and wood is plentiful with large diameter trees, well adapted to the manufacturing techniques of plywood production.’
Ennis nodded, looking uneasily at his watch. Ohlsson continued unperturbed.
‘Those same people have realised that the Indonesians want to develop their forestry production and exports. You know Indonesia is supposed to have strict rules, with the minimum diameter for felling fixed at fifty centimetres, that’s selective cutting. They’re supposed to operate in twenty-year cycles, so that there is reforestation by natural regeneration,’ he smiled.
‘So?’ Ennis asked in a slightly hostile manner.
‘Well, forests alone cover about one hundred and fifty million hectares in Indonesia, of which only fifty to sixty million are accessible. The specialists have calculated that the potential harvest is seventy million cubic meters of wood a year, based on an estimated annual growth increment each year. That’s a lot of money, isn’t it?’ Ohlsson smiled.
‘If you like.’ Ennis wondered what he was getting at, and at the same time he wanted to get away from him.
‘Yes it is, in Finland the total land surface is thirty three million hectares with forests covering two thirds and the annual harvest of round wood is about forty five million cubic metres.’
‘I see, but what’s your point,’ said Ennis making an effort to hide his impatience.
‘Bear with me the time to drink our coffee,” he said with a kindly smile. ‘But to cut a long story short, the average Finnish birch has a diameter of twenty five centimetres, with a remaining core after peeling for plywood of seven centimetres, whereas an Indonesian meranti hardwood has an average diameter of eighty centimetres, leaving a core of twenty,’ Ohlsson smiled.
He looked at him with fixed smile, ‘...and?’
‘My question is this, is it for the future good of Finland, or any other developed country, to exploit the long term interests of Indonesia for their own selfish short term objectives? The Finns they know absolutely nothing about this country, or its peoples and forests.’
Ennis was completely taken by surprise, he had not expected to be confronted by a...he could not put an exact label on Ohlsson...perhaps a forester-ecologist?
‘Let me ask you straight, what’s your particular interest in this matter?’ Ennis asked carefully.
‘I’m a botanist, my special concern is for tropical forests. My friends and I are deeply concerned by the development of forest industries in this country. Look John, this is not really the moment, let’s met again. You’re at the Borobudur, so am I, let’s say tomorrow for lunch.’
‘I’m not sure....’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll call you tomorrow morning to confirm it.’
Ohlsson stood up stretch out his hand to Ennis and then disappeared amongst the conference delegates as Riady arrived.
‘Who is that?’ said Riady.
‘I don’t know,’ said Ennis perplexed.
HIGH JINKS