(UPDATED) Henry Sy Sr., the country’s wealthiest man who built his empire by operating a chain of shopping malls in the country, died on Saturday. He was 94.
Sy “passed away peacefully in his sleep early Saturday morning,” the SM group said in a statement.
No further details were available.
The Sy family said: “We are truly grateful for the outpouring of sympathy on the passing of our father Henry Sy, Sr. May we respectfully ask for privacy today to give the family time to reflect and to finalize arrangements.”
For its part, the SM Group, in a statement later in the day, expressed deep sadness and said that it joined the family of “our beloved Chairman Emeritus, founder and Tatang, Mr. Henry Sy Sr.” in “fervent prayer.”
He had been known to be ailing the past several years, and would occasionally appear in public, especially during his holding firm’s annual stockholders’ meeting, on a wheelchair.
His appearances had become very rare in recent years, reserved mainly for the advocacy closest to his heart—the graduation of the scholars of SM Foundation, many of whom have themselves become the stuff of inspiring rags-to-riches stories.
Besides scholarships, he made substantive donations to hospitals and built clinics.
Sy is surivived by his wife Felicidad and six children.
Born on December 25, 1923, Sy is the founder and chairman of SM Prime Holdings Inc., the operator of the chain of malls in the country and in China. He is known among the business circles here and aboard as the “Retail King,” growing his empire from a modest shoe store he set up in Quiapo in 1946.
SM stands for “Shoe Mart”, the former name of his shopping malls that spur development in the area where it is located.
He earned his Associate of Arts degree in Commercial Studies at Far Eastern University in 1950.
Sy has always believed in the Philippines, especially in times of adversity.
According to SM Investment Corp.’s website, Sy raised eyebrows — for what was then seen as a foolhardy step –when he was building his first SM shopping mall on North Edsa in the early 1980s, still a Marcos era, amid an economic downtrend and rising interest rates. The area was a large swampy property between Quezon City and Caloocan now known as North Edsa.
“When SM City North EDSA opened in 1985, it drew thousands, exceeding everyone’s expectations,” SMIC’s website said. The shopping mall today stands as one of the country’s largest and busiest malls.
“From his origins in retail, Tatang (as Sy was called by persons close to him) has had an innate desire to make customers feel happy when visiting his store and giving them value for their hard-earned money. From customer happiness sprung the larger goal of sustaining the communities that have grown around SM’s developments. This mindset has become rooted in the company’s values, practices and culture,” SMIC said.
He then built a chain of shopping malls all over the Philippines, usually spurring development on the nearby properties.
Children
Sy, through his children, expanded to other businesses and now owns BDO Unibank Inc., the country’s largest lender, mining and owns half of City of Dreams Manila, the $1.5 billion integrated resort and casino in Entertainment City in Paranaque.
At first, Sy gave the management of his core businesses to his six children. But only recently many of his children gave up management positions to others, allowing a new breed of managers to come in. Even Sy himself gave up his chairman position in SM Investments Inc. to his friend and long-time chief finance officer Jose T. Sio.
Teresita Sy-Coson remains to be the vice chairperson of SM Investments Corp. and chairperson of BDO.
His son Hans Sy, who previously run the property side, also gave up his management position from SM Prime to Jeffrey C. Lim.
Henry Jr., meanwhile, stepped down last year as president and CEO of National Grid Corp. of the Philippines, to manage his own cement company.
Sy’s other children were Harley, Elizabeth and Herbert.
Supported education
Sy has always been a supportive of Philippine education, giving away millions to build school buildings even to established schools such as Dela Salle University in Manila, a building for the University of the Philippines’ satellite schools in Bonifacio Global City in Taguig and in Mirriam College in Quezon City.
In 1993, Sy established the SM Foundation’s college scholarship program. The program supported 100 scholars on its first year.
SM Foundation’s college scholarship has supported almost 4,000 scholars. SM scholars can choose among courses like accountancy, engineering, information technology and education, among others.
Image credits: Bloomberg