On June 11, 2011, Forbes magazine released from its website the list of top billionaires to include 11 from the Philippines whose wealth collectively grow to $34 billion as compared to last year’s $22.8 billion. The boom in the stock market which the country is currently experiencing is cited as the source that lifted the fortunes of the country’s wealthiest to an all time high. This notwithstanding the drop in trade and lower infrastructure spending by the government by which slowly geared the country’s economy to only 4.9% in the first quarter of the year 2011 as compared to 8.4% of the same period in 2010.
Surprisingly, this has more than doubled the overall number of billionaires in our country this year in the Forbes list, reaching to 11, a feat in itself.
Where before, wealthy Filipinos as a group are actually the poorest compared to their counterparts in other Asian countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. The country’s historic political instability may be one of the setbacks along with the fact that the nation has the tiniest market capitalization in Philippine Stock Exchange.
But still the nation has proven to all and sundry than it can improve on its own. Suddenly, certain areas in the stock market boomed and was up at third, making it one of the top performers in Asia. Meanwhile, foreign investors and businesses were more than welcome than in the past and credited the trend to the “economist in her”, referring to former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
It was said that the global financial crisis have actually pared down the collective fortunes among the country’s wealthiest to 18%. However, there are just datas that show certain stock market peaked up and thus, luckily and successfully doubled, tripled and even quadrofold the fortunes of some of the Philippines’ wealthiest.
Heny Sy of SM chain of stores and the country’s biggest mall operator holds the top slot in the country, a feat he enjoyed for four successive years in a row having a net worth of $7.2 billion this year compared to his last year’s of $5 billion. His assets other than his number of malls spread all over big cities in the country includes a holding company, SM Investment Corp. which holds interest in about a dozen or so companies that would include the country’s second largest bank, Banco de Oro Unibank.
The complete list of 11 Filipinos included among the Forbes list of billionaires are as follows:
1. Heny Sy - $7.2 billion
2. Lucio Tan - $2.8 billion
3. John Gokongwei - $2.4 billion
4. Andrew Tan - $2.0 billion
5. David Consunji - $1.9 billion
6. Jaime Zobel de Ayala -$1.7 billion
7. Enrique Razon Jr. - $1.6 billion
8. Eduardo Cojuanco Jr. -$1.4 billion
9. Roberto Ongpin - $1.3 billion
10. George Ty - $1.1 billion
11. Tony Tan Caktiong - $1.0 billion
Holding the number 9 slot, Former Trade Secretary Roberto Ongpin is the biggest gainer in percentage term whose wealth soared four times fold to $1.3 billion. Most of that gain was mainly due to his stake at Atok-Big Wedge, a listed miner.
Two new Filipino global billionaires with diversified businesses are included in this years list namely Andrew Tan, who is into real estate, tourism, food and beverage and quick service restaurants and Enrique Razon Jr., port operator who head the International Container Services whose profits from last year was nearly doubled this year due to uptick in global trade.
To sum it up, while almost all countries are suffering from the setbacks brought about by the global crisis, each one has slowly stood up to face the challenge. Philippine is no exception. While it has its own political instability that dampens the spirit of some, still it ables to withstand on its own. While it isn’t to say that the rich becomes richer and the poor becomes poorer, indeed others become richer by just doing right business sense while not jeopardizing other members of the society. Henry Sy and John Gokongwei are just good examples. In fact, their businesses have in fact been a part of us such that we can say that we become part of them too.
Incidentally, these two successful business tycoons had in fact such modest beginnings that had become an inspiration to every Filipino.
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