TEMPO Interactive, Jakarta:At the end of last May, Indonesian actress and model Julia Perez was waited on by lot of people to inaugurate the new Jupe (Julia Perez) Fried Chicken restaurant on Cimbeuleuit Street in Bandung. The fried chicken restaurant is one of the many contributors to her fortunes. “I don’t know for how much longer I can be an artist. So the new predicate I have is businesswoman,” she said after arriving in Bandung. The football school she established alongside her ex-boyfriend Gaston Castano was seen as a charity project, as she gives more “subsidies”. Although earning a profit, the fried food restaurant is not a chicken that lays golden eggs. The biggest Jupe investment is in the coal industry. However, Jupe does not want to leave her restaurant business. Partly because it’s from the fried chicken the story of coal mining began. It all started when she pitched Jupe Fried Chicken to Tommy Congko, a coal business owner in South Kalimantan. The offer was given when she was invited to a performance there around 3-4 months beforehand. However prior to responding to the chicken business, Tommy instead offered Jupe a coal mine. Tommy who is also in a rock-dangdut music group lives in the city of Batulicin, in Tanah Bambu, South Kalimantan. He has around 600 hectares of land to mine coal. Trusting Tommy’s managerial experience in the industry, and reading about mining on the Internet and advising experts, in time Jupe expressed interest to join the venture. “I was in provided it was lawful” said the singer of the song Belah Duren. Jupe’s role is to be a client liaison. She utilizes all her contacts in celebrity circles and friends from when she lived in Netherlands or France to sway them to invest and buy shares. Her first buyer got Jupe the bonus red BMW car. “Many people committed to stocks in my coal business, and also invested amounts of money which astounded me” she said. She was shocked because for the first time in her life she saw the amount of Rp 5 billion being exchanged. Following that there were payments from Rp 10 billion to up to US$ 1 million. “I almost cried at how many people trusted me and invested so much money. I was grateful, because with all this faith and support the business would prosper,” she said. “My employees are mainly in Kalimantan. My work is not in vain, as it’s a positive for other people too,” she said. *****