RSA and SMC

I have covered San Miguel Corp., mostly relentlessly, in my 56 years of economic and business journalism, through its various management teams and controlling stockholders – the legendary Don Andres Soriano Jr. (ASJ), his son Andres Soriano III (AS III), Eduardo “Danding” Cojuangco Jr. (ECJ) and since early 2000, under Ramon S. Ang (RSA), who turned 72 this January.

Andy Soriano ran SMC for 20 years, from 1964 (when he was 38), til his death from cancer in 1984. Under him, SMC remained largely a beer, beverage (Coke) and packaging company but nonetheless the largest local company.

A year earlier, in 1983, tycoon ECJ acquired majority control of SMC – 20 percent under his personal holdings and 31 percent through a leverage buyout using borrowed funds from the United Coconut Planters Bank (now with Land Bank), after a year of vicious takeover battles among the two Ayala wings – Jaime Zobel de Ayala (father of JAZA and his siblings) and Enrique Zobel (Enzo), the father of Iñigo Zobel, and ECJ.

ECJ regretted using UCPB leverage funds. “I should have borrowed the money from Hong Kong,” he told me, and that would have stopped the government and the Supreme Court from claiming SMC was owned 31 percent by – the government.  Cojuangco would later buy the government common shares (converted into three-year preferred shares), paying more than P100 billion in cash and dividends.

In 1986, People Power broke out and Cory Aquino installed largely figurehead presidents, beginning with AS III.

In July 1998, ECJ took full control of SMC and ousted the Soriano family (which had barely 1.8 percent holdings, with which they ran SMC 100 percent, from 1986 to 1998).

ECJ recruited trusted friend and business partner RSA, initially as SMC vice chairman, from Jan. 28, 1999 until June 11, 2024. With ECJ as chairman and CEO, RSA was the president and chief operating officer, March 6, 2002 to Nov. 2, 2021.

So since 1999, RSA has been managing San Miguel, making him the longest serving president and later chair-CEO of the 136-year-old company.  “Ramon was a diamond in the raw,” ECJ told me of RSA’s considerable talents and potential.

Before ECJ, RSA was a tycoon in his own right. He built an auto parts machine business in Tondo while barely in his short pants as a kid. He also invested heavily in modern high-technology Eagle Cement empire (sold to SMC for P97 billion in 2022). Today, with Eagle and Northern Cement, SMC is No. 1 in cement and the most profitable cement operation.

In 2001, with RSA in full command, SMC began its major expansion and diversification. It acquired Pure Foods Corp., renamed it San Miguel Pure Foods Company, Inc. It made SMC the undisputed food manufacturing company, the leanest, most efficient, lowest cost and most integrated food manufacturing conglomerate.

Through the Pure Foods acquisition, San Miguel entered the flour business and expanded its presence in feeds, poultry and processed meats, the latter through the Purefoods Hormel Company Inc., a joint venture with Hormel Foods International. In 2003, San Miguel acquired a hog farming, feeds and processed meats business in Vietnam. In 2004, San Miguel Pure Foods relaunched Magnolia milk and ice cream and debuted in the coffee industry via a joint venture with Super Coffeemix Manufacturing Ltd. in 2005. In 2013, SMC completed construction of the Golden Bay Grain Terminal, a world-class, efficient, fully-automated grain terminal.

In 2010, SMC acquired Petron Corp. RSA has spent $3 billion to make Petron Southeast Asia’s most efficient and most advanced oil refining and marketing company. Zero waste. Everything is sold. Petron supplies 40 percent of the country’s fuel needs.

In 2013, SMC bought the South Luzon Expressway toll business from its Indonesian owner, for P20 billion. RSA expanded SLEX business, sideways and vertically. Today, you think of SLEX as running from Santo Tomas Batangas to North EDSA mall. SMC Tollways has rights to build 4,000 kms of tollways in Luzon.

In 2024, SMC became the largest power producer, surpassing its competitors with 6,079.6 MW capacity and a 22.4 percent market share.

In 2024, it began to manage the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA). By 2025, says RSA, “the improvements we have made – from modernizing facilities to implementing more responsive passenger management systems – are being felt not only by travelers, but the country as a whole. For the first time, the country’s premier gateway has been awarded a global customer experience accreditation from Airports Council International. On top of this, NNIC has remitted over P57 billion to the national government in its first year alone.”

SMC has spent P2 billion dredging rivers.

By 2030, SMC’s P735-billion Bulacan AeroCity becomes operational.

In 1999, SMC revenues were only P76.62 billion, down 3.3 percent from P78.23 billion in 1998.

In 2025, SMC should register P1.4 trillion in net sales and P105 billion in profits. In the first nine months of 2025, SMC reported P1.09-trillion revenues and P78.64 billion in profits.

More than 70 percent of San Miguel’s P1.4-trillion revenues comes from RSA’s bold visioning and deft execution. In management prowess, political skills, people management and business strategy and execution, none, among the present crop of CEOs, can light a candle to Don Ramon.

“It has been – as with all the years that I have had the privilege of serving the company – a 2025 filled with purpose. Beyond delivering strong results and advancing our major projects, our company continues to make a real difference in the lives of many Filipinos,” says RSA.

SMC is strengthened by its focus efficiency and organic growth which “underpins our sustainability as a company (and) supports continued dividends.”

“Our investments will deliver meaningful returns – today and for many years to come”.

Yet for RSA, “real success is measured by the lives we uplift and the opportunities we create for Filipinos through projects that truly improve quality of life.”

Summing up what RSA has achieved, I say San Miguel’s business is nation building. RSA’s motto is love of country.

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