Lucio Tan

Lucio Tan, 2018

Lucio Tan (born July 17, 1934 in Amoy in the Chinese province of Fujian , chin. 陳永 栽) is a Filipino magnate and entrepreneur of Chinese descent. In 2008 he was the second richest Filipino with a total net worth of US $ 1.5 billion. On the Forbes list of the richest people in the world , he was ranked 522 in 2009 with an estimated net worth of US $ 1.4 billion. With the Lucio Tan Group of Companies , he controls a conglomerate of nearly 300 companies.

Early years and advancement

Tan (chin. 陳永 栽) was born on July 17, 1934 in Amoy (today: Xiamen ) in the Fujian Province of China as the first of eight children. When he was four years old, the family moved to the Philippines as part of the Japanese occupation of China. There Lucio Tan studied at Far Eastern University. After graduating as a chemist, he founded a small electronics store and a corn starch factory, but initially failed with both. In the same year of failure, he founded Himmel Industries Inc., a chemical manufacturing and trading company. Tan achieved his first business success with used machines and repaired old US trucks.

He finally worked in the tobacco industry in the late 1950s. On behalf of his employer, he was entrusted with the purchase of tobacco in the Ilocos province . As a result of this experience, he founded the company Fortune Tobacco in a small hut in Marikina in 1965 . After initial difficulties and great competition in the hard-fought tobacco market, the company flourished in the early 1970s and became the largest cigarette manufacturer in the Philippines from the 1980s. In 1996 Fortune Tobacco even controlled 75% of the domestic market.

In the early 1970s, Lucio Tan began to diversify his corporate base. In 1970 he founded the company Foremost Farms and got into pig breeding. In 1977 he bought the previously bankrupt General Bank and Trust Co. (Genbank) from the government for only 500,000 Pesos , which he then built up in the following years under the name Allied Bank to become one of the 10 largest banks in the Philippines.

A year later, in 1978, Tan bought Riverside Steel Inc., the Philippine branch of the Japanese Kawasaki Steel Corporation, and thereby also laid successful foundations in the building and construction industry.

In 1982 Tan founded Asia Brewery. Here he benefited from a relaxation of state regulation that had previously prohibited any start-ups in the brewery industry. Until then, the San Miguel Corporation had been the only brewery in the country. In this context, accusations of cheating were again loud, as Lucio Tan had been good friends with the then president and dictator Ferdinand Marcos since the early 1960s. Such allegations were made in previous years when Fortune Tobacco was granted government tax breaks that enabled Tan's company to outperform the competition.

In 1985, Lucio Tan bought the 500-room 5-star Century Park Hotel in Manila.

In May 1988, the purchase of Tanduay Distillery, one of the leading rum producers in the Philippines, followed.

When the then state-owned Philippine Airlines was privatized in 1992 , Tan secured a majority in the company, which later enabled him to take full control.

In 1995, Tan founded another aviation company: Macro Asia Corporation. This holding company is active with other subsidiaries in various service areas of the aviation sector, such as catering, helicopter charter and maintenance, including Lufthansa-Technik Philippines , a joint venture of Lufthansa Technik AG and Marco Asia Corporation.

After the privatization of the Philippine National Bank (PNB), Tan joined the company, and in 2000 the Lucio Tan Group of Companies became its largest private shareholder. In February 2013 there was a merger with Allied Bank, which is also part of the Lucio Tan empire.

Links to the Marcos regime and to President Estrada

Lucio Tan and Ferdinand Marcos first met in the early 1960s, and a close friendship developed through the early 1970s, which continued when Marcos declared the country martial in 1972. There have been repeated allegations that Lucio Tan's companies were being given unfair advantages by the government. After Marcos' disempowerment in 1986, claims were even made that Marcos himself had a 60% stake in Lucio Tan's group of companies. In addition, Marcos is said to have received 60-100 million pesos annually in return for favors and facilities for Tan's company. In the course of the freezing of all Marcos assets after its withdrawal, some companies in the Lucio Tan Group were initially confiscated by the state, including Foremost Farms.

Lucio Tan is also said to have close ties to Joseph Estrada , who was President of the Philippines from 1998 to 2001. Tan was one of the main donors in Estrada's campaign. In the following years, a government claim for 26.5 billion pesos against Tan's company Fortune Tobacco for tax evasion was given up in an obscure manner . Estrada himself was finally ousted from office in January 2001 and found guilty of corruption by a court on September 7, 2007.

The allegations against Lucio Tan, on the other hand, were finally dropped on December 7th, 2007 after lengthy legal proceedings, as the allegations made could not be clearly proven.

Private life

Lucio Tan is married to his wife Carmen and has six children.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ http://www.forbes.com/lists/2009/10/billionaires-2009-richest-people_Lucio-Tan-family_FQVX.html
2. ↑ http://www.travelph.com/flights/pal/tan.htm
3. ↑ http://www.bridica.com/EBchecked/topic/582102/Lucio-Tan
4. ↑ inquirer.net: PNB and Allied Bank complete merger , accessed on August 3, 2017
5. ↑ http://www.soulcast.com/post/show/160848/Lucio-Tan:-Into-the-Light
6. ↑ http://www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/98/11.htm
7. ↑ http://www.millionaireacts.com/919/lucio-tan-success-story.html