(Conclusion)
Ramon Ang, president of San Miguel Corp., grew up far from the intrigue of high finance.
The son of parents who worked in the auto-parts business, he started his engine-repair venture and taught himself how to create value from inexpensive things.
In high school, he took $250 from reselling engines to buy a used 1967 Pontiac Firebird. The deal cemented his love affair with sports cars and speed. Ang pursued mechanical engineering at Far Eastern University in Manila, graduating in 1982.
Mark Cojuangco recalls Ang’s drive when the two produced auto parts in Cojuangco’s backyard.
“We were together in the early part of the journey,” Cojuangco, a former congressman who has made his name advocating for nuclear energy in the Philippines, says in his home in the upscale Ayala Alabang neighborhood. “When he sets his mind on something, he does his best to make it happen.”
Ang moved from car parts into buying and repairing Japanese heavy equipment, working for himself.
Mark Cojuangco joined San Miguel Corp., in 1984 to manage the now-defunct general-services division. He also served as assistant to the chairman—his father, Eduardo Cojuangco—and was involved in an experimental prawn-farming effort.
The 1980s were emerging as one of the most turbulent eras in the country’s stormy history. The country, stifled by then-President Ferdinand Marcos’s declaration of martial law in 1972, was on the brink of revolt against the dictator, who counted the elder Cojuangco as his friend.
After opposition leader Benigno Aquino was murdered, the military backed a popular uprising in 1986. Marcos fled to Hawaii with the Cojuangcos and other allies. He died in Honolulu three years later.
The Cojuangcos spent a few months in Hawaii and then moved to California. Eduardo Cojuangco returned to the Philippines in 1989, resuming San Miguel’s chairmanship in 1998.
He rewarded Ang, who had kept an eye on his interests during the family’s exile, by naming him vice chairman in 1999 and president and chief operating officer in 2002.
Branching out
With his patron back in charge, Ang set out to diversify San Miguel beyond its position as the nation’s biggest food-and- drinks company.
The board at first was reluctant, Ang says. Directors changed their minds after he generated about $3 billion in cash by selling stakes in National Foods Ltd., Coca-Cola Bottlers Philippines Inc. and other firms he had bought while vice chairman.
Ang pushed into mining, oil refining, power, infrastructure and telecommunications as then-President Arroyo began deregulating some industries.
The timing was propitious. Companies were holding on to cash, and bank lending was scarce amid the global credit crunch. San Miguel snapped up bargains. It financed purchases with the pile of money Ang had raised by selling stakes in units, including a $1.5-billion sale of 48.3 percent of San Miguel Brewery Inc. to Japan’s Kirin Holdings Co. in 2009.
Ang’s acquisition spree more than tripled San Miguel’s revenue to P474.6 billion in 2010 from 2007, based on consolidated figures reflecting acquired firms. Profit almost quadrupled to P31.5 billion last year.
Ang is raising his profile as the public face of San Miguel—surpassing even the boss’s son.
“Mr. Ang is the most prominent of the second-generation taipans,” says Benito Lim, a political science professor at Ateneo de Manila University, using the term for big bosses. “He’s the one calling the shots.”
Lim says Eduardo Cojuangco, 76, is among the first-generation taipans who built their businesses—and fortunes—after the Philippines gained independence from the US in 1946. The elder Cojuangco rarely comments about San Miguel other than at its annual meetings.
Mark Cojuangco says he doesn’t begrudge Ang his position.
“Certain things in life you have to trust the judgment of the authority,” he says. “That’s my dad’s call, and I respect him.”
Ang stands out among Filipino tycoons because he’s gregarious and relates to common people, says Simon Paterno, a managing director and country head of Credit Suisse Group AG in the Philippines. “Filipinos like a leader who’s powerful but also someone accessible,” says Paterno, who worked with Ang on San Miguel’s $950-million share and bond sale in May.
Ang displayed his populist side in October. He directed San Miguel to send rubber boats to the typhoon-hit Central Luzon region to help rescue people.
Audacious expansion
Seated in his conference room with a view of tropical gardens, Ang says he never imagined he’d be where he is today. “We were just simple people,” he says.
Yet he always had high aspirations, naming India’s Mukesh Ambani as his role model. Ambani’s Reliance Industries Ltd. operates the world’s largest refinery complex, and Ambani owns one of the planet’s most expensive houses. “I admire his audacious expansion,” Ang says.
His own expansion has a way to go, Ang says.
San Miguel exceeded his revenue target of $10 billion last year, based on pro-forma results from the company. He’s aiming to double revenue again—to $20 billion by 2015. He also wants to more than double Ebitda to $5 billion in the same period.
Besides finding his next deal, Ang says his dream is to buy a 1954 Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR. Of the nine built, only eight still exist, including two in international museums. The remaining six are all owned by Mercedes-Benz, and none is for sale, according to Daimler AG, which makes Mercedes-Benz cars.
In 1955, 82 spectators and 300 SLR driver Pierre Levegh were killed in Le Mans, France, in motor racing’s most catastrophic accident. “This car was too fast, too advanced for its time,” Ang says.
Ang, who can’t get speed off his mind, says he sometimes pushes one of his Porsches or Ferraris to 322 kilometers an hour.
As Ang steers San Miguel on its fast-track expansion, investors are hoping the company will show that it values transparency as much as crossing the finish line first.
