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IN February this year, taipan Alfonso Yuchengco marked his 85th
birthday.
Yet, AY is anything but retired. He still keeps
his usual routine of waking up at 8, taking his breakfast, swimming
a few laps at his pool, and visiting his wife’s tomb at the Forbes
Park Santuario, before reporting for work at the 48th floor of his
spanking RCBC Plaza headquarters building.
There, AY oversees a vast conglomerate of 28
major companies (52 if you count the small ones) that in the past
two years have shown remarkable resilience and robust growth. The
group has seen unprecedented profitability, giving it the momentum
for further expansion.
To prepare for bigger things, AY has recently
sorted out succession. Eldest child Helen Dee remains the overall
CEO. Eldest son Alfonso “Boy” Yuchengco Jr. has been convinced
to take a more active role in managing the business. He is now in
charge of the family holding company, the Pan Malayan Management and
Investment Corp.
AY cannot but be happier at the recent turn of
events. Boy is helping. RCBC has a new CEO. “We are very happy
with Lorenzo Tan,” he says. “He is a great asset.”
AY is immensely happy that his eldest son has
come under his tutoring. “He will be a CEO,” AY says. “He is
willing to learn,” he notes, “which is a good sign.”
“The business is interesting,” says the son,
“but demanding.”
AY hosted lunch for me recently at his 48th
floor penthouse office at RCBC Plaza in Makati. He served exquisite
Japanese lunch concocted by his chef of many years. His eldest son,
Alfonso “Boy” Yuchengco Jr., joined us. Some of the topics
discussed:
How active in the business
As active as my children would permit me
(laughs), which is often. But they never pay me any salary. That is
the case in the last 20-30 years. They made me chairman emeritus in
the last three years. That means I only get the name. No salary. No
power. The big boss of most of the companies is Helen Dee, my eldest
child. She is chairman of two banks, RCBC and RCBC Savings. She is
also chair of House of Investments. My other daughter, Yvonne, the
big boss of Malayan Insurance, handles insurance.
On his routine
I come to the office at ten. I stay up to six or
seven p.m. I always have lunch here, unless I have appointments
outside. I work about ten hours a day, including Saturday morning.
In my younger days, I used to work whole day Saturdays and half day
Sundays. Saturday is the only time I can work on my papers. I have
no visitors, no telephone calls. I write my letters, correct them
and have them typewritten later the following Monday. In the
evening, usually, I have dinner appointments, invitations by
different people. If I have no invitations, I go home, take a nap,
watch TV news, read some books.
On the business
It’s all right. This year should be alright,
if not the same as last year. The two biggest problems of the
country are: one, the population growth; and two, graft and
corruption. We are growing at over 1.87 million people a year. There
is no way you can support that kind of growth. At the beginning of
the Second World War, we were only 14 million. At the end of the
War, we were 13 million. But now, we are 87 million people.
The second biggest problem is graft and
corruption, in the government and in the private sector. If we can
correct these two problems, then our country can really develop. We
will have a great country.
On RCBC
It is doing quite well. We still rank No. 4 in
terms of size. Profitability has gone up very much. In 2007, our net
profit was P3.2 billion, the best in our history. The bank is in the
best financial footing ever. We are very happy with our new
president, Lorenzo Tan. He is a great asset to us.
We are growing bigger. We will acquire other
banks. The only way to grow is acquiring other banks. We are looking
at several (banks to buy). And also improve the quality of manpower.
On the insurance business
Malayan Insurance has been No. 1 in this country
for the last 30 years. We still are No. 1. In terms of size, in
terms of volume of business, and in terms of profitability. Last
year, we made about P500 million.
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