Forbes’ 2024 World’s Billionaires List included 15 Filipinos, with former senator Manuel Villar emerging as country’s wealthiest individual.
Villar’s net worth surged to $17.2 billion from $11 billion last year, thanks to his real estate and retail businesses. He ranked 117th overall among the world’s 3,028 billionaires.
Villar owns several listed firms including Golden MV Holdings Inc. which raked in net income of nearly P1 trillion in 2024 on gains from the revaluation of investment properties as well as Vista Land & Lifescapes Inc., All Home, AllDay, VistaREIT and Premier Island Power REIT.
He is also diversifying his business in free-to-air TV and plans to build a casino and theme park.
Ports and casino magnate Enrique Razon Jr. came in second with a net worth of $11.1 billion. Razon managed to grow his wealth from last year’s $10 billion, as the decline in casino business was offset by strong performance of ports business under International Container Terminal Services Inc.
San Miguel Corp. chairman Ramon Ang came in third with a fortune of $3.7 billion, followed by tobacco and airline tycoon Lucion Tan with $3 billion
Rounding up the list are six Sy siblings: Henry Sy Jr. ($2.3 billion), Hans Sy ($2.2 billion), Herbert Sy ($2.1 billion), Harley Sy ($1.9 billion), Teresita Sy-Coson ($1.9 billion) and Elizabeth Sy ($1.7 billion).
Also included in the list were Alliance Global Group Inc. chairman Andrew Tan ($1.6 billion), Puregold’s Lucio Co ($1.4 billion) and Susan Co ($1.3 billion), Tony Tan Caktiong ($1.3 billion) and Eusebio Tanco ($1.2 billion).
Tanco is a new addition to the list following the surge of stock prices of online gaming firm DigiPlus Interactive Corp. and education arm STI Education Systems Holdings Inc.
SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk rose to the top as the world’s richest billionaire with a net worth of $342 billion, followed by Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg ($216 billion), Amazon’s Jeff Bezos ($215 billion) and Oracle’s Larry Ellison ($192 billion).