Henry Sy: The Richest Man in the Philippines

Henry Sy is a Chinese Filipino businessman who owns the largest retailer and a shopping mall in the Philippines. He is the founder of SM Group and the chairman of SM Prime Holdings.

In 1950, he earned his Associate of Arts degree in Commercial Studies from Far Eastern University. He was also acknowledged as the country’s “Retail King”. Henry Sy had come a long way from the store shoe he owned in Quiapo to the biggest Asia’s mall operator. He runs over 30 malls throughout the Philippines including SM Mall of Asia which the biggest mall in entire Asia and the fourth-largest mall in the world.

Henry Sy is today’s the richest man in the Philippines. He gained 1.4 billion dollars in 2008 which made next to Lucio Tan as of 2008 records and the 843rd in the world. In September 2009, his net income was estimated to 3.8 billion dollar by Forbes Asia that made him top in the rank of the Philippines rich list. Henry Sy was considered a Tai-Pan or tycoon of Asia. He is the operator of Banco de Oro Universal Bank and the owner of China Banking Corporation.

He bought the 66% share of stocks of Equitable PCI Bank which is the Philippines 3rd largest lender since he already had the 34% of it. Making him the new owner of Equitable PCI Bank and merged it onto Banco de Oro Universal Bank in 2007 that made the Philippine’s second largest financial institution in 2008 and taking the top spot in 2009 with resources of close to $20 billion dollars.

The Makati Business Club was named him the Management Man of the Year”. He was also awarded as an Honorary Doctorate in Business Management by De La Salle University-Manila in January 1999. He also organized the SM Foundation Inc that helps the promising young Filipino.

SM Investments Corp has always been mention as one of the Philippines best-managed companies.