More hidden champions in Philippine business

A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do. —Bob Dylan

It’s amazing how much feedback our recent column got on the hidden champions of Philippine business, or those successful and exceptionally outstanding businesses that are nevertheless low-key or relatively unknown compared to the SMs, Ayalas and Jollibees.

Here are more hidden champions in Philippine business: 

• Wilcon Builders Depot seems to be the Puregold of construction-supplier retailers, with so many huge and air-conditioned retail branches opened nationwide in recent years. To further boost its growth, Wilcon has even invited top actor Edu Manzano to be its celebrity endorser in advertisements.

Unknown to people, the media-shy and hardworking ethnic Chinese entrepreneur behind Wilcon Builders, William T. Belo, has also built up through the years the Philippines’ largest crocodile farm that exports crocodile skins, with over 25,000 crocs. Belo (no relation to the famous cosmetic surgery tycoon Dr. Vicki Belo) owns Coral Farms in Tanay, Rizal. Is crocodile farming his passion?

The family of former TV broadcaster and Columbia University graduate Gilbert Remulla also has a crocodile farm in Cavite.

Why crocodile farms? Crocodile skins are in high demand overseas for the manufacture of bags, jackets, wallets, belts and other goods. Crocodile meat is also edible!

• STI Group – A hidden champion in Philippine big business is the reputable and fast-growing STI Group led by Asian Terminals, Inc. boss Eusebio “Yosi” Tanco. He is leading STI towards major expansion from the education group’s existing 72,000 students through its eventual listed holding firm JTH Davies Holdings, Inc. 

Highly educated himself at the Ateneo and the prestigious London School of Economics, the humble and low-profile Tanco is an example of a COO or “child of owner” who can still be diligent and driven. He is the scion of a prominent textile tycoon. Unknown to many, Tanco has also bought into the Benitez family’s Philippine Women’s University (PWU).

• New San Jose Builders, Inc. – One of the aggressively expanding real estate developers in the currently hot Philippine property boom is self-made billionaire Jerry L. Acuzar. His New San Jose Builders, Inc. was established in 1986 and it has carved a name for itself as a top developer in Quezon City. Acuzar’s wife, Tess Ochoa-Acuzar, is a sister of President Noynoy C. Aquino’s executive secretary Paquito “Jojo” Ochoa.

What is unique about Jerry Acuzar is not so much is wealth, but his passion for preserving the colonial era “bahay na bato” houses of the past. He would buy entire antique houses from different parts of the country, dismantle and restore them again in his 400-hectare seaside resort called Las Casas Filipinas de Acuzar. This area was the setting for GMA 7’s top-rated Zorro TV series starring Richard Gutierrez. Jerry Acuzar is into finance with Real Bank in Quezon City, with top auditor Jose G. Araullo as bank chairman.

• Generics Pharmacy – Mercury Drugstore is still the undisputed biggest drug retailer in the Philippines in terms of annual revenues, but a little David has emerged from almost nowhere to become the largest drug retailer in terms of number of outlets nationwide: Generics Pharmacy with 1,410 outlets.

Chinese Commercial News and China Business magazine publisher Solomon Yuyitung told this writer that his high school classmate Benjamin “Ben” Liuson started the 2007 franchising venture of Generics Pharmacy when he was no longer young, so this remarkable success story should be an inspiration for people who are no longer young but still dream of becoming an entrepreneur. 

Another lesson from the Generics Pharmacy saga is the possibility of innovating an old, existing enterprise by thinking out of the box and becoming bold. In Liuson’s case, he excelled with entrepreneurial innovation and changes within the family business of pharmaceutical imports, which used to be run by his parents.

Apart from changing the business thrust of retailing cheaper, non-branded drugs and going into franchising, Generics Pharmacy even now has TV and other media advertisements with celebrities like Batangas Governor Vilma Santos Recto and Miss Philippines-Universe beauty queen Janine Marie Tugonon.

Although the Mercury Drugstore chain of “rags-to-riches” tycoon Mariano Que is still No. 1 and the Gokongwei family is reportedly entering the drugstore business, Generics Pharmacy is still growing fast. 

Incidentally, decades ago Mariano Que also started small with his business, after having been an employee in the prewar Farmacia Central drugstore business of self-made immigrant and Chinese Chamber of Commerce co-founder Dr. Jose Tee Han Kee (father of the late Chief Justice Claudio Teehankee).

• Gan Advanced Osseointegration Center – A hidden champion in the vast and still not fully tapped medical tourism industry is the Gan Advanced Osseointegration Center (GAOC) led by topnotch and innovative dentist Dr. Steve Mark Gan, the dental sector’s equivalent of Dr. Vicki Belo due to his numerous celebrity patients and different branches.

Another famous dentist whose Dr. Smile dental clinic at The Podium mall is ideal for tourists is dental board top-notcher Dr. Joseph Dy Lim, whose maternal grandfather was my late grand-uncle, the late lumber tycoon Dy Bun Chin (also known as Dy U Bong and who in the 1950s reportedly assisted a young Emilio T. Yap in his early business ventures). A former top official of Lucio Tan’s University of the East (UE) Dentistry College, a competitor, SM boss Henry Sy, has invited Dr. Lim to help out in his National University (NU).

How can the Philippines — with our huge pool of English-speaking nurses and medical personnel in our sunny tropical isles — challenge or at the very least take a slice of the multi-billion medical tourism businesses of our ASEAN neighbors Thailand and Singapore? What can the government do to support the growth of medical tourism with such visionaries as Dr. Belo, Dr. Lim and Dr. Gan?

It is not only we in the private sector who should think, dream and work hard like champions, but the government, too!

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Thanks for your feedback! E-mail any comments to willsoonflourish@gmail.com or WilsonLeeFlores at Twitter.com or Facebook.