Soriano: The 4th Richest Filipino

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

BUSINESS tycoons in a way rule the world. In Asia, we refer to them as Taipans.

Many Taipans from Asia are now emerging in the map of the world's richest people. Western economies have collectively acknowledged Asia as the next growth corridor with India and China pacing the pack and outperforming most economies of the world.

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Knowing the biographies of these Taipans is quite inspiring for the future generation. There are only a handful of Taipans in the Philippines who started their life as ordinary men.

One Taipan that has achieved immense success and continues to inspire entrepreneurs to dream big and persevere amidst the very competitive environment is my former boss and mentor of eight years, Andrew L. Tan.

Tan is the single biggest reason why I took the giant leap of faith in becoming an entrepreneur, family business advisor and a columnist.

On the lighter side, his eldest son Kevin was my first rank and file employee and trainee when I established the Commercial centers Group for Megaworld. He is now the FVP and Group head of Megaworld’s Commercial Services Group tasked to grow the Lifestyle Malls brand.

Recently, Andrew Tan moved up to the list of the Philippines’ richest men (4th in the Forbes 2011 list of The Philippines’ 40 richest. His net worth is $1.4 billion.

When most of the local Taipans are in the twilight of their golden years, Tan is still very much in the plate and is far from corporate retirement. I am almost certain that in the Forbes 2015 list, Tan will likely emerge as the richest Filipino.

His phenomenal rise to the top in just a little over 20 years has caught everyone in the business community gasping for breath. The tenacity and speed by which he has grown the business and amassed his wealth is legendary.

Phenomenal is an understatement, I have lost count of the number of high rise buildings he has developed starting with the first 35 storey, One Beverley Place condo along Annapolis Street in Greenhills in 1989.

His real estate group valued at P180 billion, all publicly listed and under the Megaworld, Empire East and SunTrust brands own close to 300 buildings and counting…

He is the biggest BPO landlord in the Philippines having developed a total gross floor area covering more than 400,000 square meters and employing thousands of call center and knowledge based service providers.

These BPO office buildings are housed in pioneering developments in Eastwood City, McKinley and Newport City. Recently Megaworld was adjudged as the Philippines top condo developer with 40,000 units delivered in a span of 10 years.

He recently acquired a majority interest in Fil-Estate Land and re branded it to Global Estate and Resorts Inc. (GERI).

With its land bank of 3,000 hectares, GERI is poised to jumpstart capital raising initiatives to fund its massive tourism oriented projects in Batangas and Boracay.

Andrew recently launched his latest Uptown development in Taguig, a sprawling 15 hectare master planned development inside Fort Bonifacio and added Cebu in his diverse portfolio with the introduction of a 16-hectare development in Lapu-Lapu City called the Mactan Newtown.

A few years back, he also won the bid to develop the 50 hectare former Iloilo Airport.

On top of his real estate businesses, Tan is the chairperson of public listed Alliance Global Group Inc., a holding firm that owns 49 percent of Golden Arches Dev’t. Corporation, the franchise holder of the McDonald’s hamburger chain.

He also owns Consolidated Distillers Inc., makers of the Emperador brandy, the world’s largest selling brandy by volume.

Resonating Andrew’s passion and decisiveness, I vividly recall a short meeting sometime in 2004 where he requested me to prepare an exhaustive business plan for a 25 hectare development in Pasay City.

That plan hatched by my managers and student researchers led to the creation of his gaming, hotel and Tourism empire under Travellers International brand. A few months later, Andrew asked me to be the first President and CEO of the company.

Travellers International is a joint venture with the Genting Group of Malaysia, the same group that developed the Sentosa Leisure Complex in Singapore.

The company’s first foray into leisure and gaming development is the hugely successful Resorts World Entertainment Complex in Newport City in Pasay.

As I write this column, Travellers International is on its way to developing its 4th Hotel and a convention center with plans of expanding in the Bay area for another development twice the size of Resorts World.
Born of humble beginnings, he was the son of a transistor radio factory worker who came to Manila from China at age 16.

Tan is a genius -- graduated magna cum laude with a degree in Business Administration from the University of the East. He lived with his family in a second floor cramped shop house measuring 30 square meters. He would walk to school and struggled throughout his college days because he had no money. His dream after graduation from college was to save enough money to put up a grocery store.

In one of my business trips to the US, I remember talking to one of his closest friends and he reminisced some days during college when he would ask his mother to prepare two sets of bread to bring to school. When his mother asked why two sets? The friend said he felt pity and wanted to share it with Tan during lunch breaks.

Tan was good looking but he would perennially refused invitations to parties and dates with girls. When he was finally cornered by classmates for refusing to go out with them, he was forced to admit that he had no money for transportation.

In several instances when we would exchange notes, he would always emphasize four very core values that has made him who he is today…the need to focus, be bold and innovative, urgency to get things done as time is money and the universal value of integrity.

These values will forever be my guideposts in my quest for entrepreneurial excellence.

(Prof. Soriano is the chairperson of the Marketing Cluster of the Ateneo Graduate School of Business. He is also a Senior Consultant of Wong+Bernstein Business Advisory Group. For comments, send email at sorianoasia@gmail.com)