Ramon C. Ang, better known as the President and Chief Executive Officer of San Miguel Corporation, is regarded as one of Asia's best corporate leaders. Under his watch, he has seen and governed much of San Miguel Corporation's growth since he became the Vice Chairman of the company back in 1999 and later the Chief Operating Officer in 2002. Much of what is known about Ramon Ang, however, is his time in San Miguel Corporation as the CEO and President of the company. He was known as the infrastructure man or the philanthropic guy who led San Miguel Corporation to build several important infrastructure projects in the Philippines and help the country during COVID-19. Moreover, San Miguel Corporation as a competitive business has also grown tremendously both locally and even internationally. In 2015, the company had a net revenue of about 672 billion pesos and a gross profit of 132 billion pesos.
As of the latest 12 trailing months, the company now has over 1.4 trillion pesos in net revenues and a gross profit of about 218 billion pesos. Yes, now that he is the leader of San Miguel Corporation, we know that he is 1 million corporate leaders out there. But what we need to understand is how?
How did he get to where he is? Who is he? These are the questions we need to understand. The ladder he had gone into and the actions he had taken.
led San Miguel Corporation to where it is today. We can trace where Mr. Ang first started, where he first appeared on the board of directors for San Miguel in 1999 when he was at the age of 43. Many had assumed that he was merely the chairman's glorified executive assistant, who was at the time known as Danding Coanco, who recently took over Andres Soriano's chair. Nothing was known about Mr. Ang.
He had no business affiliation stated in the company's annual report. and was all but a close friend of Coanco's son. Yet, upon an interview with Coanco, he had praised Aang for impressively turning around his cement manufacturing firm and was described by Coanco as a successful businessman. Upon appointment as vice chairman, Aang was noted by San Miguel executives as the one who had already been running San Miguel's day-to-day operations and to whom the company's president was reporting. During his stage as the already-elected vice chairman, Ang was not just like some businessmen out there, he was already very wealthy.
An old source in 1999 by the Far Eastern Economic Review of Hong Kong estimated that he was worth at least 250 million US dollars, and much of his wealth came directly from his heavy equipment business importation and property. A year later, as the dawn of the 21st century, Ramon Ang is seen to be strategizing the future of San Miguel Corporation. On January 11, 2000, it was reported that he was finding investors for a possible 30 billion pesos reclamation plan somewhere in Roxas Boulevard.
One of his potential investors was the famed Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing. But that very project would stumble upon challenges, leading to a Supreme Court battle. By 2001, San Miguel would yet again come into rocky roads. The government was still against the entire chairmanship of Mr. Koh-an-Koh, and there were fears. that if the government took the 27% stake in the company, he and Ang would step down.
Fortunately enough for them, that did not happen. By 2002, Ramon Ang would be named the official president of San Miguel, but as some have noted, he was already running the day-to-day corporation, and the title was nothing but a formalization. In the same year, Ramon Ang was seen taking up a big stake in Phil Webb, which was equivalent to about 10% of the company.
Phil Webb, was a big company, mostly operating in the casino industry. Some of the most notable feats about Ramon Ang are not specifically about his day-to-day operations, but rather how he helped the corporation target its goals to enable expansion by acquisitions and new facilities. He took a small stake in Phil Webb, but in San Miguel Corporation's view, he was there when the company had eyed local and international expansion.
In 2003, Ang and San Miguel announced a two- billion pesos bottling facility plant for one of its alcoholic beverages, known as Ginebra San Miguel around Batangas. It was also reported by Financial Times London that San Miguel has been looking to Asia for its next rapid revenue growth. The news magazine in an interview with Mr. Coanco stated that he was hoping that San Miguel would increase its presence around Southeast Asia, including China and Taiwan, to allow the company to continue posting double-digit growth despite the Philippine economy being sluggish. By 2004, San Miguel had announced a production facility in Malaysia that would target the local country and also Singapore. The Johor Bahru facility was the first to be built in the Philippines.
as stated by Mr. Eng, would enable San Miguel to lower its cost of business, and that plan was to acquire a 20-hectare property in a greenfield project. A year prior, however, in 2003, Kirin Beverages Company, a Japanese conglomerate, had acquired a 15% stake in San Miguel, which was reported to be good for the country and for the economy. Finally, one of the last few major acquisitions done in 2004 was when San Miguel acquired a Malaysian packaging firm. which Mr. Eng has cited that they had confidence in Malaysia for its pro-business policies.
By 2005, San Miguel Corporation was now rocking the entire Philippines market. Their sales revenue totaled 148 billion pesos in 2003 and 174 billion by 2004, and is now looking to target 300 billion pesos. How are they going to do it?
Well, Eng had led San Miguel in the acquisition of a major Australian company, which it bought for a whopping 1.8 billion US dollars. National Foods, their acquired company, was a leading company in the entire food and beverages industry. But Eng has stated that it was a very expensive acquisition, which led them to consider selling at least 49% of the company to minimize cash outlay.
But surprisingly, they did not sell 49% of the company, but rather 100% of the company to Kirin, the Japanese shareholder of San Miguel, for a price tag of over $3.1 billion. In just two short years, Ramon Eng had helped San Miguel profit more than a billion dollars. Even when they held the company as a subsidiary, it was already making profits for the parent company.
National Foods contributed $11 billion to San Miguel. billion pesos or 280 million Australian dollars with 880 million pesos in operating income from June to August alone and an official 170 million dollars in operating income by 2006. 2007 and 2008 were very crucial years for Ramon Eng because it saw a global financial recession and continued growth through mergers and acquisitions from San Miguel Corporation, one of its oldest brewery businesses. was spinning off, known as San Miguel Brewery. Secondly, they had also gone on to acquire the Bank of Commerce, which led the corporation to enter the banking industry.
Despite being in the middle of a global recession, San Miguel Corporation continued to acquire major companies and strived hard to see a continued change in business dynamics. In 2009, a shocking event would, however, unfold. Ramon Ang, who is now 53 years old, is looking to retire.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Ramon Aang said that, quote, I've always planned to stop working and enjoy my time when I'm 55. The Wall Street Journal credited Ramon Aang for his role in National Foods, in which they used some of those proceeds to acquire stakes in Petron Corporation and Manila Electric Corporation. Unfortunately, two years have passed by, and Ramon Aang does not seem to have retired. He would go on to experience the biggest breakthrough of his career. In 2011, he led the company to stage big investments. They had announced a $10 billion merger and acquisition spree and soon after bought Philippine Airlines.
They had also seen their shareholder Kieran Holdings sell their stake, and through its conglomerate status, led them to enter the infrastructure business. But that was not the big breakthrough of Mr. Ang. After he led the company into growth, he went on to acquire a stake for himself. Yes, at that point, Ramon Ang was just acting as somewhat of a leader of the San Miguel Corporation. He was not the owner of the company, neither was he even a major shareholder.
But by 2012, he swooped in and bought 11% of San Miguel, which was 493 million shares priced at about 75 pesos each for a total of about 37 billion pesos. And as time showed, neither his retirement nor his small 11% would stay the same. He would go on to continue leading San Miguel.
and his own company known as Top Frontier Investment Holdings, which he owns along with Inigo Zobel, holds about 61.78% of San Miguel as of the time of this writing. One could now understand just how Ramon Ang went from being a normal businessman in the Philippines to taking San Miguel Corporation in his hands. But anyway, do let us know what you think. Thanks for watching.