SM: The greatest growth story

On March 21, 2025, the family of the late Henry Sy Sr. and executives of his holding company, SM Investments Corp. (SMIC), marked the 20th year of public ownership, at the Philippine Stock Exchange. At the IPO listing anniversary were: Tatang’s eldest, Tessie Sy, vice chair of SMIC; Amando Tetangco, chair, SMIC; Frederick DyBuncio, president-CEO and Jose Sio, Tatang’s most trusted adviser and former SMIC vice chair.

The SMIC share price closed at P800 that day; it dropped slightly, to P786 yesterday, valuing SMIC at P968 billion, down 21 percent from its October 2024 peak of P1.237 trillion. The Sy family owns at least 63 percent of SMIC, giving them P608.5 billion or $10.64-billion wealth. SMIC is on a $1-billion share buy-back spree. SMIC, after all, is the Philippines’ greatest growth story. It is the most valuable company.

With its March 21, 2025 P800 share price, SMIC shares grew 549 percent (more than six-fold) in 20 years, a dizzying 27.45 percent yearly price appreciation. In 20 years, SM’s assets grew by 900 percent (ten-fold), a 12 percent annual growth.

CEO Frederic C. DyBuncio credits the group’s growth to SM’s unwavering commitment to the Filipino people and the vision of its founder, Henry Sy Sr. “Over the past two decades, we’ve consistently created value, delivering steady returns to investors while expanding opportunities for people and communities. This legacy of growth and value creation continues to drive us forward.”

“The next 20 years will see SM continue to lead in retail, property and banking, while expanding into new regions where growth is accelerating, especially in provincial areas.” the former banker said.

In 2024, SM added 619 more retail stores, two malls and 73 bank branches, over 85 percent in the provinces, bringing SM’s footprint to 87 malls, 4,470 retail stores and 2,441 bank branches.

Hardship, hard work, ambition, timing and luck. These are five ingredients of success I learned from Tatang Henry Sy, a good friend. He always granted me interviews and often offered me merienda in his Forbes Park home to listen to the latest Marites.

He first came to Manila by boat as a boy of 12 in 1936, with only 10 centavos – in search of his father, an education, a better life and a fortune. He spoke no English and no Tagalog. His mother, Tan O Sia, told Henry on the day he left, “Don’t look back.”

Henry grew the 10 centavos, a pittance, into a fortune worth at least $20 billion if valued properly.

The boy-child cried when he first saw his father in Manila. “There has to be a better life than this,” Henry told me in an interview. His father’s store in Calle Echague was no bigger than two square meters.

The shop was multi-functional – store by day, bed by night, with the same table where goods were displayed serving as bed by nightfall. Every morning his father bought goods in Divisoria and carried them barefoot to Echague, a backbreaking, unrelenting routine. From his father, Henry learned three things – discipline, hard work and good credit.

Henry attended Grade 1 at Anglo-Chinese School in Manila but he was in such a hurry he asked his teacher how he could speed up schooling. The reply: have a grade of 90. He did, finishing grade school in five years, at the top of his class – remarkable, given that he had no textbooks and could only afford second-hand handouts.

By 1941, when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, the Sys already had two stores, which happily were not devoured by war-induced looting. Under Japanese rule, Henry, by then a man at 17, got a bike and busied himself doing the buying and selling for the two stores. “In good times, I do my usual work. In bad times, I work harder.”

After the Battle of Manila, one of his two stores was razed, the other looted. The city was in ruins. His father left Manila back to China.

Postwar in Manila, Henry had saved a few hundred pesos. He found a new business hub – Plaza Miranda. He began buying cigarettes by the cartons from American GIs and selling them by the pack, making a peso per pack. He also sold scrap metal and other odds and ends.

Later, with rented space from Don Vicente Rufino on Calle Carriedo, Henry built his first store, selling anything he could. It was also his house by night. US shoe importers offered to sell him shoes by the job lot. With a partner, Lao Kang, he opened Plaza Shoe Store and a second, bigger store, Park Avenue Store.

One day, a GI walked into one of his stores and bought a pair of shoes without haggling. Henry felt guilty for overcharging his customer. From then on, he adopted fixed pricing.

With two stores, he quit night school, finishing only a two-year course in Commercial Science at FEU. Wearied from grueling work the whole day, he was sleepy in class.

In 1949, China Bank gave him his first bank loan, P1 million. Today, he owns that bank, in addition to BDO.

By 1959, Henry, after nine years of marriage to Felicidad, a teenage crush, had six children – Teresita (born 1950), Elizabeth (1952), Henry Jr. (1953), Hans (1955), Herbert (1956) and Harley (1959). They are the new management team today, plus a corps of professionals led mostly by topnotch bankers. Banking, after all, is SMIC’s biggest business.

Henry traveled to learn about retailing. The US had become the mecca of shopping centers, with the rise of Macy’s (1858), Sears (1893) and JC Penney (1903) following the post-war economic boom. In Europe, he observed the latest trends in fashion and retailing.

Like Henry, all his children were educated in Manila. The third generation is foreign educated. Theirs is the next growth story.

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