Forbes: Sy, Zobel, Aboitiz families among Asia’s richest

MANILA, Philippines - Three Filipino families – Sy, Zobel and Aboitiz – are in Forbes’ inaugural list of Asia’s 50 richest families that have grown their respective business empires over at least three generations.

The three families are also behind the biggest conglomerates in the Philippines.

Topping the list is the Lee family of South Korea, the clan behind the Samsung Group, with a combined wealth of $26.6 billion and which, according to Forbes, generated revenues in 2014 equivalent to 22 percent of South Korea’s gross domestic product.

None of the three Filipino families made it to the top 10 but the Sy family leads the Filipino clans in the list, occupying the 13th spot with an estimated net worth of $12.3 billion mainly from its conglomerate SM Investments Corp.

Forbes recognized Sy’s hard work in growing the business founded in 1958 into the empire that it is today.

“Henry Sy worked at a young age for his family’s convenience store. He later started a small shoe store in Manila and built it into SM Prime, the country’s largest mall developer. The family’s interests now range from banking to retail, and growth plans involve building ‘micro cities’ around some of its existing mall properties,” Forbes said in the 2015 Asia’s Richest Families.

The family also has a stake in privately owned electricity firm National Grid Corp.

Forbes noted the involvement of Sy’s children in different businesses.

“Sy’s children are all involved in management and meet weekly over lunch to discuss the business; their mother sometimes joins. Grandchildren are taking active roles,” Forbes said.

The Zobel family placed 35th in the list with a net worth of $4.2 billion from its main source of wealth, Ayala Corp.

“Seventh generation runs conglomerate Ayala Corp., one of the Philippines’ oldest businesses. It started off as a small distillery in Manila 181 years ago, and is now one of country’s largest conglomerates and a holding company for publicly traded Ayala Land, Bank of the Philippine Islands, Globe Telecom and Manila Water,” Forbes said.

The third and the last among the Filipino clans on the Forbes list is the Cebu-based Aboitiz family with a net worth of $3.6 billion.

“The family controls Cebu-based publicly listed conglomerate Aboitiz Equity Ventures (AEV), with interests in power, transportation, banking, food and property,” Forbes said.

“AEV was founded by Paulino Aboitiz, the son of a Spanish farmer, in the late 1800s after he migrated to the Philippines. It began as an abaca-trading and general-merchandise business and later moved into inter-island shipping, transporting goods across the Visayas,” it said.

The Lee family’s wealth meanwhile dates back to 1938, according to Forbes. 

Its founder Lee Byung-Chull, son of a wealthy landowner, founded a small trading company in Daegu.

His son Lee Kun-Hee then succeeded him as chairman in 1987 before Samsung spun off into four entities in the 1990s.

“Today, Samsung Group, CJ Group, Shinsegae Group and Hansol Group are all run by second and third-generation Lees,” Forbes noted.

Other families in the list include the Queks of Malaysia, the Godrej and Mittal families of India, Singapore’s Kuok family and the Salim family of Indonesia.

“Nearly half of the richest families in Asia are of Chinese descent, but none of them is based in mainland China, where conglomerates are young and run by first generations,” Forbes said.

Families from India hold 14 of the 50 spots, easily the most from any jurisdiction, it also said.

Tim Ferguson, editor of Forbes Asia, said: “Just as a family business brings its useful product to market and evolves from there, this inaugural ranking opens the door to new discoveries in future years.”

Forbes said the minimum combined net wealth to qualify for the list was $2.9 billion.

It reviewed families of 550 members of Forbes’ 11 Asian Rich Lists (excluding Australia) and additional families behind the region’s biggest private companies and dynasties that had fallen out of the rich lists because the fortunes were too dispersed.