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By Likha Cuevas-Miel Reporter
Two Chinese-Filipino
entrepreneurs are included on Forbes magazine’s billionaires’
list in 2007: airline and tobacco tycoon Lucio Tan and shopping mall
magnate Henry Sy.
The duo made it alongside 1,125
Asians, representing a total net worth of $4.4 trillion in 2007.
Tan ranked 785th among Forbes’
list of the world’s richest. The former chemical engineer is now
the Philippines’ richest man, with an estimated worth of $1.5
billion. He also owns a portfolio of real estate in Hong Kong.
He controls several companies
listed in the Philippine Stock Exchange involved in air transport,
real estate, mining, liquor and tobacco manufacturing. Tan, 73, owns
MacroAsia Corp., Tanduay Holdings, Eton Properties Philippines Inc.,
Allied Banking Corp. and Philippine National Bank.
He also owns majority of
Philippine Airlines—the country’s flag carrier— Fortune
Tobacco, University of the East and Asia Brewery, the second-largest
brewer in the country.
The controversial tycoon figured
in a huge tax-evasion case, which was dismissed in 2004. In December
2007, the Supreme Court ruled in Tan’s favor when it resolved
questions regarding his ownership of several businesses.
Shoe Mart’s Sy
Henry Sy is the second-richest
Filipino on the Forbes list, ranking 843rd among the world’s
wealthiest with an estimated net worth of $1.4 billion.
Sy is the big boss of the
Philippines’ largest retailer SM Group. His SM Prime Holdings is
the country’s largest mall operator, named after the small-time
Shoe Mart he established 60 years ago.
Sy built his fortune from a
retail business that later grew to what is now SM Group. The Sys may
end 2008 with 33 malls nationwide. Three malls in China were
recently absorbed by the SM Group.
One of its 30 branches, the SM
Mall of Asia, is also the country’s largest mall with more than 4
million square feet of space. His daughter Teresita Sy-Coson runs
the Banco de Oro, one of the Philippines’ largest banks.The Sys
also control Banco de Oro Unibank, which merged with Equitable PCI
Bank in 2006, and China Banking Corp.
The Sys have since branched
out into real estate, hotels and
resorts development.
World’s wealthiest
Meanwhile, on Forbes’s list,
the world’s topmost billionaire was Warren Buffet.
He managed to unseat Microsoft
Corp. founder Bill Gates as the world’s richest man as his net
worth climbed up by another $10 billion from a year ago.
Buffet’s fortune reached an
estimated $62 billion, topping the $58-billion estimated worth of
Gates, the world’s richest for 13 straight years.
Buffet is the majority owner and
chairman of Berkshire Hathaway,
a holding company that owns or
has investments companies in diverse fields.
Coming in second is Mexican
telecom tycoon Carlos Slim Helú with an estimated net worth of $60
billion. His fortune rose by $11 billion due to strong Mexican
equities market and the performance of his wireless telephone
company, America Movil.
Gates ranked third on the latest
list of billionaires. He built his empire on a series of operating
systems used by majority of personal computers today.
Forbes said Gates’ slip to the
third spot should be blamed on Microsoft’s aggressive bid to merge
with search engine giant Yahoo to fight off Google’s dominance in
the Internet search business.
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