Guess What? Henry Pribadi

Guess What? Henry Pribadi

When this man gave up his hoop dreams, by quitting Indonesia's basketball team years ago, few expected that Henry Pribadi would be playing another game on another level, in international finance and the petrochemical trade.

Henry, a well-known basketball player in the early 1980's, is now the man behind several major ventures, such as polypropylene maker PT Tri Polyta Indonesia, a US $371 million company listed on the Nasdaq Bourse in New York, and the multi-billion dollar olefin project, PT Chandra Asri Petrochemical Center.

"I'm too busy and too old now for basketball," he said last week after Tri Polyta's shareholders meeting. Henry also chain smokes nowadays.

The forty-something tycoon said, however, that this does not mean his love for the game has completely evaporated.

"I'm a patron for the Indonesian Basketball Association. I also try to watch the NBA playoffs on television whenever I can," he said.

"I'm glad that Michael Jordan has returned to the game after trying baseball for a while," he said.

Unlike Jordan, we can expect Henry to stay in his other field of dreams for many years to come. (hdj)