The phenomenal rise of Ramon Ang

Many of us who have known Ramon Ang for over three decades closely watched him rise to where he is today – the new major shareholder of San Miguel, the Philippines’ biggest conglomerate with interest in every growth sector in the country.

We first met “Don Ramon” – as he is fondly called by long time friends – when he was engaged in a modest business sometime in the late ‘70s, importing high-end cars and engines and trading or selling them at a profit. A Mechanical Engineering graduate from the Far Eastern University, Don Ramon has always had a great passion for cars that was first developed when he was a young man, tinkering with his toys and figuring out how he would assemble them back again.

It was also during that time that RSA (as San Miguel employees refer to Ramon Ang) was introduced to Eduardo “Danding” Cojuangco Jr. through ECJ’s eldest son Mark who was also into cars and racing. In no time Danding Cojuangco and Ramon Ang clicked right away, when both discovered that they shared a common love and passion for collecting and restoring vintage cars.

Their business relationship began to flourish when Ramon was appointed as manager of Northern Cement Corp., and this partnership even got “cemented” during Eduardo Cojuangco’s exile to the United States. Ramon never wavered in his friendship with ECJ and remained loyal even if people tried to distance themselves from the tycoon. When ECJ returned and eventually took over the helm of San Miguel, Danding immediately recruited RSA who hit the ground running, first as vice chairman then president and chief operating officer.

“I trust Ramon completely,” ECJ once told us during lunch at his private dining room next to his San Miguel office, “and even if he makes a mistake in his decisions I will still agree with him because we both think the same and most likely will make the same mistake,” he averred.

True enough, Ramon Ang parlayed this trust – and his remarkable business acumen – into unprecedented success for the food and beverage company, turning it from a rather one-dimensional entity into one of the most diversified today, with interests in transportation, telecommunications, energy and oil, exploration, banking. Don Ramon was such a visionary that many times in the past, his goals and decisions would be looked at as incredible and described as pipe dreams. By last year, San Miguel had a market capitalization of over P270 billion and assets estimated at P890 billion.

But even before the sale of SMC shares to Ang became public, this plan has been in the pipeline much earlier. ECJ had long decided to anoint Ramon as his successor not only as reward for the hard work and loyalty shown by the latter, but as recognition that he is the right person to steer the company to even greater heights of success – something which people no longer doubt will happen.

As a matter of fact, RSA has boldly predicted that SMC will have P1 trillion in revenues by 2016 – and he will most likely achieve this way ahead of schedule. This early, many agree that Ramon Ang has already made his mark in PAL with his ambitious refleeting plans for Philippine Airlines with the acquisition of 70 new aircraft in anticipation of the eventual FAA rating upgrade that would pave the way for PAL’s expansion to Europe and the United States. There has been a lot of positive feedback about PAL from regular passengers including myself, with many looking forward to the delivery of more B777s and A380s soon. (PAL very recently took delivery of its third Boeing 777-300 ER equipped with modern amenities and capable of flying across the Pacific and Australia.)

But more than having business acumen or possessing great vision, perhaps what has greatly contributed to the phenomenal rise of Ramon Ang is the fact that he is not the type to attribute success all to himself, acknowledging the contribution of employees and managers in achieving growth targets. RSA is also hands on with CSR (corporate social responsibility) projects like his plan to build a socialized housing project and community complete with job training opportunities to help people find employment either at home or abroad. He also quietly supports several charitable organizations like the Gawad Kalinga with a P500-million contribution.

From relatively humble beginnings, RSA has become one of the most respected business figures today whose personal worth is estimated to be in billions of dollars, with his personal businesses such as a hotel, a cement factory and investments in countless companies.

Now that Danding Cojuangco has officially turned over the SMC reigns to Ramon Ang, ECJ is now free to pursue his personal activities and other endeavors. A new challenge that ECJ has taken up is the La Salle basketball team which he predicts is going to be “the team to watch” in the UAAP games.

Spy tidbit

Sixty years since it crashed in November 1952 with a crew of over 50 men, a US Air Force C-124 Globemaster plane has been found on Colony Glacier in Alaska, just 14 miles from where it originally crashed. Members of the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command are now analyzing suspected bone fragments recovered from the area – although authorities could not be certain if what they discovered are human remains.

Accounts say that six days after the crash, rescue teams spotted the tail of the plane sticking out from the snow-covered mountain, but poor visibility and bad weather hampered recovery efforts. Its exact location lost, none of the bodies were ever recovered.   

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