MANILA, Philippines — Taipan Henry Sy Sr., who rose from being a penniless Chinese immigrant to leading a multi-billion dollar business empire, passed away on Saturday, his conglomerate has announced.
Sy was 94 years old.
“Henry Sy… passed away peacefully in his sleep early Saturday morning,” his SM group said in a statement, adding that the particulars of his wake and interment were still being worked out.
Sy had been the country’s richest man for 11 years in a row, according to Forbes magazine, which estimates his net worth at $19 billion.
Forbes said he was the 52nd richest person in the world last year, beating out bold name tycoons like Elon Musk, Rupert Murdoch and George Soros.
Largest malls in the world
Sy made his fortune with a Philippine shopping center conglomerate that has put up some of the largest malls in the world.
His holdings also included banks, hotels and real estate in the Philippines, as well as shopping centers in China.
Sy changed the Philippine landscape with his shopping mall empire, turned SM into a household brand and malling into a national past time, and redefined the limits of banking.
“He was a happy man knowing that he left our world a better place to live in,” SM Investments Corp. chair Jose Sio said in a text message.
“He was an icon in Philippine retail, banking and real estate. Above all, he was a caring father and a God-loving man. I will miss him,” Sio said.
Sy was also a generous donor to charitable causes, allotting millions of pesos each year to finance the college scholarships of thousands of deserving but underprivileged Filipino youth, among others.
First SM store
Henry Sy Sr. poses for a photograph inside a small shoe store called Shoemart in Carriedo in 1958. (Contributed photo)
Sy put up his first shoe store in Carriedo in downtown Manila in 1958, a business which later grew into a diversified empire.
The Sy family-led SM group owns three of the most valuable companies in the country: flagship conglomerate SM Investments Corp., SM Prime Holdings Inc. which is now a leading property developer in Southeast Asia and BDO Unibank.
These days, the SM group runs over 200 companies in the Philippines and operates close to 80 local shopping malls plus another six in mainland China. SM has become a household brand and it’s a running joke that the country’s capital is now “SM City.”
READ: The Henry Sy Playbook: 9 lessons from PH’s richest man
Sy stepped down as chairman of his holding firm in 2017, assuming the title of “chairman emeritus” and leaving trusted allies as well as his children in charge of his empire.
All six children (by order of birth) — Teresita (Sy-Coson), Elizabeth, Henry “Big Boy” Jr., Hans, Herbert and Harley — are now working to expand the business empire and train the next generation of shareholders.
Sy, the migrant
It was a long journey for a man who came to the Philippines as a boy to work in his immigrant father’s variety store.
“Our store was so small it had no back or second floor, we just slept on the counter late at night after the store was closed,” he told the Philippine Star newspaper in 2006.
Sy left his hometown of JinJiang, once an impoverished city, when he was barely a teenager to live in the Philippines with his father, Xiu Shi Sy, who was operating a small-time grocery business.
During World War II, his family lost everything, which prompted his father to go back to China.
Sy decided to stay in the country, initially getting into merchandise trading and eventually striking a gold mine in retailing and shopping mall development. BDO Unibank, once a niche banking player, became the biggest player in his lifetime.
The shoe vendor
He got a commerce degree from a Manila university and started selling shoes in a shop which would later grow into a chain named ShoeMart.
By 1972, his shops had branched out into selling all manner of goods, prompting the name to be changed to SM Department Store.
But it was in 1985 that Sy made history when he opened his first “Supermall” in Manila.
Spanning over 424,000 square meters (4.6 million square feet), the mall included dozens of stores, numerous cinemas, restaurants, banks and other attractions that made it a one-stop shop for millions of Filipinos.
This was just the start, as more of Sy’s mammoth malls popped up across the country, some even containing ice skating rinks, a rarity in the tropical country.
Sy helped create mall culture in the Philippines, where steamy temperatures and the regular threat of torrential downpours can make outdoor shopping uncomfortable.
Sy’s holding company, SM Investments Corp. opened its first mall in China in 2001 and has been expanding there as well.
By 2018, SM said it had 70 malls in the Philippines and seven in China as well as six hotels and eight office buildings.
Henry Sy Sr., undated photo
