The Forbes 2000 list for the year 2023 listed Garuda in the 1,572nd position in the list of the world's top 2,000 promising public companies. Garuda made it into the Forbes list alongside 42 other airlines, aerospace, and defense companies.

Garuda President Director Irfan Setiaputra announced this achievement during a hearing with the Industry Commission of the House of Representatives.

Irfan explained that the ranking is based on four criteria: sales, profit, assets, and market value. The data is derived from the companies' financial reports over the past 12 months, published on May 5.

Forbes reported that Garuda recorded a profit of USD 3.67 billion, equivalent to around IDR 54.8 trillion. Its total assets reached $6.24 billion (IDR 93.3 trillion) with a market value of $393 million (IDR 5.87 trillion).

Irfan claimed that this achievement is the result of Garuda's ongoing efforts to recover after completing the company's debt restructuring (PKPU) last year. When the PKPU lawsuit was filed at the end of 2021, Garuda's debt stood at USD 10.1 billion (IDR 138 trillion). The debt owed to lessors, companies that finance the purchase or leasing of Garuda's aircraft, amounted to USD 6.019 billion.

On June 2022, Garuda managed to strike a settlement agreement with its creditors. The agreement resulted in Garuda paying its debts to 254 creditors, with the highest claim amounting to IDR 255 million in cash.

After the debt restructuring, Garuda was able to generate a revenue of USD 2.85 billion (IDR 42.6 trillion). Garuda also accumulated a sinking fund, set aside for debt repayment or long-term capital, amounting to USD 61 million (IDR 912.2 billion) by the end of the first quarter of 2023. "This is Garuda's commitment to fulfill the promise in the PKPU," said Irfan.

Illusory profits and achievements

Despite having announced a net profit of USD 3.8 billion (IDR 56.87 trillion) for the entire year of 2022, economist Yanuar Rizky regarded Garuda's achievement as illusory and not performance-based.

"This only restores the previous condition. The largest contributors to revenue came from rescheduling vendor and lessor payments, as well as debt-to-equity swaps," Yanuar said.

Yanuar also mentioned the corruption investigation within Garuda conducted by the Attorney General's Office, including allegations of fund inflation in aircraft leasing to lessors.

The audit conducted by the Financial and Development Supervisory Agency estimated a state loss of IDR 8.8 trillion from aircraft procurement between 2011 and 2021.

Therefore, Yanuar pointed out that one of the factors contributing to Garuda's "profit" in the 2022 financial report is the inclusion of aircraft leasing in the settlement claim amounting to USD 4.085 million.

According to him, this item proves that the profit recorded by Garuda is only on paper and not cash profit. "It's not a cash profit," said Yanuar.

Oppressing lessors and creditors

Another economist, Bhima Yudhistira, from the Center of Economic and Law Studies, stated that Garuda's management statement of success is tantamount to oppressing the lessors and creditors who should receive their rights even with the delay through PKPU.

Bhima regarded Garuda's move as permissible financial engineering. "The public will perceive Garuda's management as successful. However, for lessors and creditors, this indicates that Garuda does not have a commitment to repay its debts that should have been paid," he said.