If Indonesian private equity firm Northstar Pacific thought it could prise the crown jewel out of the powerful Bakrie family’s business empire, when the latter appeared to be caught in a tangled $1.4bn web of debt, the past eight weeks have been a crash course in Indonesian entrepreneurship.

For while analysts rate Northstar as extremely professional – with US private equity firm TPG among its general partners – the Bakries, with six decades of experience behind them, appear to have played the better hand.