Top 10 richest people from the Philippines

Although the Philippines is not necessarily considered the richest country in the world, or even among the top 10 economies, it is still interesting to see just how many rich Filipinos have managed to achieve success with smart investment and business ideas over the years.

In this article, we will be talking about 10 of the most successful people that have made their fortunes either inside or outside of the Philippines. As long as their nationality is confirmed to be Filipino, they have a chance to make it on this list.

As always, we tried to keep the list diverse in case there were small differences in the wealth of the people on this list. We tried to cover all possible ways these people made their fortune, be it real estate, trading, large retail brands, or just plain hustling.

Note that all of these people have dedicated tens of thousands of hours to achieve what they currently have, but that doesn’t mean that it’s unachievable. If you are a Filipino and would like to have your name on the top 10 richest people in the Philippines list, then you can start building your empire with a trusted FX trading broker linked below.

Now, without further ado, let’s see who the richest Filipinos are.

Sign up with XM now!

Manuel Villar

Manuel Villar is a very interesting individual who has had experience in both finance, business, and politics all at the same time. The moment after his graduation from the University of the Philippines, Villar has been involved with high echelon lending and financial institutions before founding his own businesses in the fields of retail and real estate. Here is some additional information about him:

• Age: 70
• NET worth: $6.8 billion as of Jan 2020
• Biggest brands: Vista Land & Lifescapes, Starmalls, Golden Bria Holdings

Manuel Villar was named by Forbes Magazine as the richest Filipino in the world, a title that he still holds to this day.

Thanks to Villar’s involvement with the financial industry, many of his mentees have made their career in Forex trading or stocks speculation with unique information they received from a man dealing with huge world bank loans on a daily basis in the past.

Thanks to his success in business, Villar was soon able to grab a career in Filipino politics and was elected as the president of the Nacionalista Party. He even ran for president but didn’t manage to win the elections in 2010.

Regardless of the controversies that come with a career in politics, Villar still has numerous followers that try to learn from him every single day.

Enrique K. Razon

Enrique K. Razon used to occupy third place in the list of rich people in the Philippines but moved up to second place after John Gokongwei Jr passed away this year, making the spot vacant.

Razon is most famous for his chairmanship of the Philippines’ largest cargo ship company, International Container Terminal Services, Inc, or ICTSI for short. Here is some additional information about him:

• Age: 60
• NET worth: $5.1 billion as of February 2020
• Biggest brands: ICTSI and BRC (Bloomberry Resorts Corp)

Business on the high seas was not something new to Razon when he first began as he belongs to the third generation of a family involved with maritime cargo shipping. Because of this, Razon had a cutting edge compared to other corporations as 2 generations of experience were right behind him ready for help.

However, many have mentioned that the only reason why Razon is a part of the Philippines richest people group is due to the country’s unique location and participation in the US-China trading relations. However, that argument is almost immediately discredited as geographic locations were never something considered in a person’s success as long as he could use the resources available to him or her.

Jaime Zóbel de Ayala

Jaime Zóbel de Ayala or more commonly referred to as Jaime Zóbel is a member of the Zóbel de Ayala family which is a notorious business family in the Philippines. However, despite the family wealth, Jaime Zóbel is considered to be number 3 in the top 10 richest Filipinos list due to his own accomplishments and merits.

Here is some additional information about Zóbel:

• Age: 83
• NET worth: $3.7 billion as of February 2020
• Biggest brands: Ayala Corporation, Filipinas Life Assurance Company

Zóbel had quite the childhood. Although being born and raised in the Philippines his journey to the Top 100 people in the Philippines list began when he first went to Harvard to get a bachelor’s degree in architectural science.

Upon his return from the UK, his father initiated him in the family business by assigning him to a couple of financial duties for the corporation. Soon enough, Zóbel managed to learn everything about the company and became its CEO in 1984. He is currently retired but remains as the chairman of the Ayala Corporation.

Zóbel is also known for his aptitude in art photography and his history in diplomacy as he represented the Philippines in the Court of St.James in the UK and several Scandinavian countries.

Lucio Tan

Lucio Tan was once considered the second richest person in the Philippines due to his massive empire of numerous corporations touching almost every industry. However, after years of new business ideas and ventures, Tan, although still considered one of the richest people in the Philippines is now in the 4th place. Here is some additional information about him:

• Age: 85
• NET worth: $3.1 billion as of December 2019
• Biggest brands: Philippine Airlines

Tan had a play in multiple industries all the way from education to banking. His largest corporations include airlines, schools, banks, and huge development companies.

In fact, due to Tan’s involvement with banking, he had numerous times been the focus of Filipino traders as the man’s insight and commentary on the market helped with guessing future price movements of local currencies, giving locals a considerable edge.

However, Tan has started focusing primarily on other parts of his empire and has since been “abandoned” as a trustworthy information source by many traders.

Tan has also been embroiled in numerous controversies in the past, some of which are still active and investigated to this day. Due to corruption concerns and convictions of Philippines rich people a few years ago, Tan was also investigated numerous times, only narrowly dodging a 51 billion dollar lawsuit in 2009 when the Presidential Commission on Good Government rested its case against him.

Tony Tan Caktiong

Tony Tan Caktiong was born to a Chinese immigrant family from Fujian and attended the University of Santo Tomas in the Philippines. He finished school with a degree in chemical engineering and immediately knew what he was going to do with his knowledge.

Many may know Tan even outside of the Philippines as the founder of Jollibee, a fast-food conglomerate that has seen shops in numerous countries across the globe. Here’s some additional information about him:

• Age: 67
• NET worth: $2.8 billion as of December 2019
• Biggest brands: Jollibee, Honeystar Holdings

Tan managed to become one of the top richest people in the Philippines with Jollibee due to an amazing market of consumers craving western fast-food cuisine. The initial plan for Jollibee was to focus on ice cream and various other sweets, but Tan soon added things such as hamburgers, fries, and even pizza when he bought out Greenwich Pizza Corp.

Tan also took a stake in Honeystar Holdings, but soon renamed it to DoubleDragon Corporation and started growing his real estate business as well.

Jollibee is a listed company, which means that people are able to speculate with its shares. Thanks to Tan’s presence on social media, people are able to pay very close attention to how the company grows or shrinks.

If you found this information on Tony Tan Caktiong interesting, you can check and even trade Jollibee’s stocks with a significant benefit by clicking the link below.

Open an account with XM

Ramon Ang

Ramon Ang on this rich people in Philippines list is one with the most diversified portfolio yet. His empire consists of numerous corporations making him billions almost every single year. But what’s fascinating about his achievements is that most of these companies are very tightly revolved around only a few key industries.

Here is some additional information about Ang that might be useful:

• Age: 66
• NET worth: $2.9 billion as of January 2020
• Biggest brands: Top Frontier Investment Holdings, SMC, Cyber Bay Corporation

Ang was also born in a Chinese immigrant family and got a mechanical engineering degree at the Far East University of the Philippines.

His involvement is usually around the investment industry, providing services for others to find safe havens or good opportunities for growing their wealth.

Providing this service through the TFIH corporation has made Ang one of the richest people in the Philippines 2020 and for good reason too.

Although there is not too much information available about him, most of his colleagues can be seen speaking about him in a very positive way, implying that all of the wealth Ang has gathered was on a positive basis.

Ang is considered the 6th richest Filipino currently.

Andrew Tan

Andrew Lim Tan is considered the 10th richest person in the Philippines, but according to our list, we decided to rank him the 8th, as some people that are wealthier than him are just part of the richest families, which is not a fair way to rank individual wealth in our opinion.

Tan is yet another descendant of Chinese immigrants and has made his fortune mostly from real estate, retail, and fast food. Here’s some additional information about him:

• Age: 68
• NET worth: $2.8 billion as of January 2020
• Biggest brands: Megaworld Corporation, Emperador Distillers, Golden Arches Development Corporation

Although our Top 10 richest people in the Philippines list would still include Andrew Tan even if we ranked the families too, we are still happy to provide 2 more individuals after this person.

Tan, like many others, got his education at the University of the East and got a bachelor’s degree in accounting. Although his early career began with a regular 9-5 job, he quickly switched to making his own business in the real estate industry.

He currently owns and runs one of the largest development companies in the country and is also fast at work growing his liquor empire as well.

Roberto Ongpin

Once again, our rating system has moved a Filipino businessman up a notch on the list. Ongpin was ranked 12th wealthiest in the Philippines by Forbes in 2018, but in our 2020 list, he is ranked 8th due to other people simply being a part of a wealthy family.

Ongpin is one of the richest Filipino celebrities as well, as he was once a minister of trade and industry under the Marcos administration. Here’s some additional information about him:

• Age: 83
• NET worth: $2.2 billion as of January 2020
• Biggest brands: Sycip Gorres Velayo, Belle Corp/Tagaytay Highlands, Alphaland

Ongpin’s business career came way before his position as minister of trade and industry, but the growth at which he acquired his wealth was significantly increased after his term ended. He started pretty small with SGV. His biggest corporation right now is considered to be Alphaland where he has a 94% stake, but this industry may not be his go-to income source as he has been seen experimenting with other sectors as well.

Eduardo Cojuangco Jr.

Eduardo Cojuangco Jr. is yet another businessman gone politician on our list. He is one of the richest Filipinos that has a background in politics and quite a lot of controversy because of it. However, we cannot overlook the fact that the owns this wealth and therefore is a part of this list regardless of those controversies.

Here’s some useful information about Cojuangco Jr.

• Age: 84
• NET worth: $1.4 billion as of January 2020
• Biggest brands: San Miguel Corporation

Cojuangco Jr. is currently the chairman of the National People’s Coalition, a party he used to try to achieve success in the 1992 presidential elections, but failed. Cojuangco was also a close friend of Ferdinand Marcos, a former president of the Philippines. This is one of the reasons why his title as one of the top 10 rich people in Philippines is questioned by many others.

He is currently the chairman of San Miguel Corporation, which is the largest food and beverage corporation in South East Asia, not only the Philippines. Naturally, his portfolio is not too diversified, meaning most of his NET worth comes from this one corporation alone.

Robert Coyiuto Jr.

Robert Coyiuto Jr. has quite a lot of business experience under his belt. It is known to us that Coyiuto was leading as many as 11 companies throughout his career. In most of these companies, he took the position of chairman, while in a few others assuming the role of director.

He is currently ranked as the 17th wealthiest man in the Philippines, but on our list, he occupies the 10th position. Here’s a little more about him:

• Age: 68
• NET worth: $1.2 billion
• Biggest brands: Prudential Guarantee & Assurance, Universal Robina Corporation

The reason why Coyiuto is considered one of the richest Filipinos has little to do with his biggest brands, however. It is believed that most of the wealth that he has gathered came from companies he owned in the power industry rather than the insurance and food distribution brands listed above.

Furthermore, it is believed that most of these companies were founded by Coyiuto himself rather than inheriting them from his parents. But now, he is slowly starting to incorporate his family into the business as well.

Grab a chance to join the list

We hope you enjoyed our list of the richest people from the Philippines. All of these people have done quite well for themselves over the years, but it seems most of them have a very unique thing in common. Most of their companies are now traded on the markets, which benefits them directly.

If you’d like to participate in the lives of these richest Filipinos and hopefully grab a small chunk for yourself, feel free to click the link below and sign up for a significant bonus on the house.

Get a free account with XM now!