Who are the missing dollar billionaires from the ‘Forbes’ list?
First of all, congratulations to the 14 Filipino dollar billionaires who have been included in the list of the world’s wealthiest people, based on the estimates of net worth by Forbes magazine.
Although the quality of its list on Philippine tycoons has been improving every year, I believe it is still incomplete like in the previous years, when I cited various billionaires they missed and whom they eventually added to their roster.
Among the names missing from the latest list include the following:
1. The Jaime Zobel de Ayala family — They control the Ayala conglomerate with patriarch, former Philippine ambassador to the United Kingdom and artist/photographer Jaime Zobel de Ayala, now managed by his very capable Harvard-educated sons Jaime Augusto and Fernando Zobel de Ayala.
For this year alone, the Ayala group has announced increasing its programmed capital expenditure (capex) to P185 billion, of which P88 billion will be by Ayala Land, Inc., led by the brilliant and hardworking University of Chicago-educated CEO, Bernard Vincent “Bobby” Dy.
2. The Aboitiz family — This leading business clan from Cebu controls top power firms with 42 power-generating facilities nationwide, Union Bank, the country’s third-biggest flourmill, Pilmico, and others. Bullish about the Philippine economy this 2017, the capex of their holding firm Aboitiz Equity Ventures, Inc. this year will be P76.7 billion or 83 percent higher than the P42 billion spent last year.
3. Mercedes Tan Gotianun — The widow of the late Filinvest Group and East West Bank founder Andrew Gotianun is also the strong-willed cofounder of this business group. Her children running the conglomerate include Josephine Gotianun Yap and Jonathan Gotianun. Filinvest is today the biggest commercial landowner in Alabang, Clark, and Cebu. A consortium formed by the Gokongwei and Gotianun groups is proposing to offer the Philippines a new, world-class Clark International Airport (CIA) by 2020, if the government will accept its unsolicited airport infrastructure proposal.
4. Ambassador Alfonso Yuchengco — The patriarch of RCBC and Malayan Insurance Group; his talented daughter Helen Yuchengco Dee now heads the conglomerate.
5. Beatrice Dee Campos — The widow of the late United Laboratories (Unilab) founder Jose Yao Campos, daughter of the late prewar lumber tycoon Dee Hong Lue, and great-grandniece of 19th-century Manila lumber tycoon and philanthropist Dy Han Kia.
6. The Lopez family — This family controls ABS-CBN, First Philippine Holdings, and Rockwell Land.
7. Lucio and Susan Co — The Co family controls the phenomenally successful Puregold retail chain, S&R, Philippine Bank of Communications (PBCom) and others.
8. Carlos Chan — Chan is boss of the Liwayway food group, which produces the Oishi brand of snacks in the Philippines, all over China and Asia. He is the elder brother of Ben Chan of the Bench fashion brand.
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