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ALFRED M.
Yao is a man who rarely rests.
He says
the last vacation he had with his entire family was two
years ago in New Zealand, and remembers a few regional
cruises with his wife. He tells the BusinessMirror he
would rather be on his toes, working, on the lookout for
new business opportunities. “I always tell my children,
‘Never be complacent.’ Work as if someone’s burning his
heels behind you. You have to keep running. That’s my
business philosophy, that’s my secret. I just don’t sit
down. I’m not complacent, even to this day. There should
be some threat from competitors, from other brands…. You
shouldn’t be able to sleep.”
For
someone who stresses that “vacations are not for me,” Yao,
ironically, is now Philippine tourism’s latest champion.
He recently completed the purchase of Asian Spirit, a
12-year-old airline primarily flying between Manila and
Caticlan, and is looking at buying another carrier,
Southeast Asian Airlines, with the intention of merging
both companies. He has also bought the Legenda Hotels and
Suites in the Subic Bay Freeport, and is just waiting for
its former owners to turn over the property to him. Last
year he was appointed by President Arroyo as special envoy
to develop tourism between the Philippines and China,
which is why he is now looking into the possibility of
expanding Asian Spirit’s regional routes to include Xiamen
and Shanghai.
“I just
thought it’s a good opportunity [buying Asian Spirit].
There’s a lot of room to grow here in local aviation and
tourism market. There are so many unexplored areas. Our
country is so beautiful, we have a lot of resources, all
we need is to develop these sites, put in the
infrastructure, then bring the tourists there. I think
tourism will help boost the economy,” he says.
Yao talks about further opening up other major
destinations in the country, such as Siargao,
Palawan
and Bohol. “The Philippines is not Boracay,” he stresses,
even as he recognizes that Caticlan, the jump-off point to
the island resort, is Asian Spirit’s bread-and-butter
route.
This
early, Yao is already thinking up ways how he can help
push the development of those other destinations. It is a
daunting task, for sure, but then the man has made a
lifetime career of getting into new businesses at the most
inauspicious times.
Overcoming
obstacles
Yao quietly made a name for himself in the closeted world
of Chinese-Filipino businesses by first starting out as a
printer of candy wrappers, before breaking into the
fruit-juice industry in 1980 with the Zest-O brand.
He
recalls: “I went to Europe, saw the doypack machine and it
was something new and innovative. Its graphics were
brighter and cleaner. I tried to sell it to Sunkist,
Magnolia, but they weren’t interested. So gumawa na
lang ako ng juice ko!”
He first
sold the juices guerrilla-style, in the PX stores of Dau,
Pampanga, and the old Cash and Carry compound in
Makati,
before landing a formal sales contract with Uni-mart.
Zest-O is now the largest-selling ready-to-drink
fruit-juice brand in the country, and the company exports
its purées to many countries abroad.
At the
height of the 1997 financial crisis, he ended up being an
investor in two banks. “I was talking with some friends
and they wanted to put a savings bank, I said, ‘Okay, I’m
in.’ They prepared all the documents and registrations.
But when it was time to call in the capital only two of us
were left. Eventually, that friend sold his shares to me
as well and I became the sole owner of what’s become the
Philippine Business Bank,” he recalls.
His other
bank is the Export and Industry Bank, of which he is vice
chairman. Set up as well with banker friends, ExportBank
extends loans to exporters and gives them access to
various trading, currency hedging and investment tools.
Despite
much larger competitors,
Yao was unafraid to acquire the struggling RC Cola, which
is now being exported to
China,
developed Beam toothpaste, and created Quickchow instant
noodles.
And now,
Yao is plunging head on into the rough-and-tumble world of
local aviation just when the larger carriers are muscling
their way into Asian Spirit’s lucrative markets, and the
entire transport industry has to contend with the surging
costs of fuel.
“That
should be the way [of doing business]. If you enter when
the industry or company is on top, the tendency is to fall
or you end up at the bottom. I think it just has to do
with my childhood, the way I grew up,” he asserts. “I
became open to changes and challenges. Today this might
not be a good business but tomorrow it will be.”
When Yao
speaks of his childhood and how his life was once mired in
poverty, he is overcome with emotion. He tells of his
mother, a young Bulakeña beauty widowed after his father
suddenly passed away from a heart attack, and how she
struggled to make sure she was able to feed her six young
children.
“My mother
really inspired me to work hard. When she became widowed,
kulang na lang mamalimos siya ng pagkain para lang
meron kaming makain. So my mom was really strong for
her age, at 32, a widow. She really had it tough. She
became a sidewalk vendor,” Yao narrates, as he dabs a
handkerchief around his eyes.
Perhaps as
a way to honor his mother, an oil canvas painting of women
street vendors with their backs turned adorns the wall of
his office on the 27th floor of the Export Bank. He says
that his mother, now 86, lives with him, and every day
before they all go to work, his siblings who live nearby
visit their mother, “even just to say hello.”
Yao’s mother sent him to live with his father’s relatives
so he could continue his studies. “So at 13, nawalay
ako sa mother ko, although every weekend I
would go home to her. That made me a stronger person, have
faith in God. I learned how to get along with others.” At
this point, his voice falters, his eyes turn redder, and
as he gets back his composure, apologizes for becoming
tearful. It is a sight not every business journalist is
accustomed to, especially from a man of
Yao’s
stature.
He
continues narrating about how he became an errand boy for
his relatives, and remembers how he could not roll out his
mattress to sleep until they finished gambling. “Utos
dito, utos doon. You cannot sleep as you wish.
Kailangang matapos mahjong nila, before I can
put down my bed,” he continues.
But he
credits all this hardship for his ability to get along
with any kind of person, his toughness at work, and his
willingness to overcome any obstacles put before him, in
life or in his career. “There’s a purpose, that’s why God
gave me that kind of life. Kung naging anak mayaman ako,
siguro wala ako dito ngayon…. At a commencement
exercise recently in Bataan, I was asked to speak, and I
was telling all these graduates that poverty should never
be a hindrance to what they want to become. You have to
push, to go ahead, to try to overcome your difficulties. I
told them, ‘I’ve been in your situation…. I’d wake up in
the morning, we would have breakfast, but I had to go out
to look for our lunch. So don’t tell me you can’t do it,
nadaanan ko na lahat ’yan e.’”
The simple
life
Because he
had to work to help put food on the table for his mother
and his siblings, and help send the latter to school, Yao
was forced to drop out of his chemical engineering course
at the Mapua Institute of Technology. He was working odd
jobs until a cousin managed to persuade Yao’s mother to
borrow some money to put up a printing press for candy
wrappers.
As fate
would have it, it was this business that led him to meet
his future wife, Linda Siy, whose father made the
orange-wrapped Fiesta candies that were popular in the
’60s and ’70s. “Her father was my customer since I was 17.
He must have liked me because he saw that I was
hardworking,” Yao narrates this with muffled mirth. “When
we were about 20 or 21, she started working for her
father. Nadirekta ako sa kanya ’pag naniningil ako.
Siguro her father felt, after six years, it was time
to catch me for his daughter,”
Yao is chuckling now. “We got married when we were about 24.”
The couple
has three children, Jeffrey, Carol and Grace, all of whom
also work for Yao’s various companies. He put them to work
early enough, as is the usual Chinese-Filipino custom,
where the kids spent their vacations helping out in the
family business. “That’s a learning curve for them, so
that they would have an interest in the company. Besides,
I’m not doing all of these for me, it’s all for them.”
Yao says he knows that the younger generation is prone to
taking it easy and having a good life, as they are reaping
the fruits of their parents’ grueling labors. Of his
children he says: “I don’t expect them to work like me,
first of all. When I was growing, it was a choice between
life and death for me so I had to work hard. For them it
is not the same. Their needs are different. So I can
accept that they will be more relaxed than me. Hopefully,
they are not. Hopefully, they will be like me.”
But he
asserts that he has brought up his kids well enough, not
spoiling them, and teaching them how to value money. “I
catch my daughters at the computer surfing the Internet
and they tell me they’re looking for bargains.” His son,
Jeffrey, he says, is the most tight-fisted with money. “We
call him belekoy. He knows exactly how much every
item costs. That’s one thing good about my kids, and even
my pamangkins, they all know the value of money.”
Despite
his near-taipan status,
Yao leads a very simple lifestyle. He says the most
expensive item he has probably bought in his life is a
car, and boasts that he can last the entire day with just
P10 in his pocket. He doesn’t need to have big lunches.
(“Sandwich lang ako. ’Pag nag-tatrabaho ka naman, ’di
ka ginugutom e. ’Pag merienda, kape-kape ka lang.”)
For exercise, he plays tennis every morning or walks
around. He is also known to drive himself around in his
Fortuner.
Instead of
some palatial mansion in some posh village in Makati or
the south, the Yaos live in an old residential subdivision
in
Quezon City
that was dubbed as “Chinatown” years ago because of the
large population of Chinese-Filipino families residing
there. Within walking distance from his home is a chapel
where Yao attends Mass every morning. Every Wednesday
afternoon, he can be found attending the Mass and saying
the novena to the Mother of Perpetual Help in Baclaran
Church. What does he pray for? “That He doesn’t give me
something that I cannot handle. I’ll accept it whether He
gives me a blessing or a problem. But I pray it is
something I can handle.”
Admiring
the Aboitizes
While only
65, the inevitable question of succession in the family
business comes up. Yao says he has thought of that and has
a plan in place. Although he hints that his businesses may
not necessarily end up in the hands of his son or his
brother Armando, 50, who’s currently in charge of the
family’s manufacturing plants.
“My son or
my children are all capable of [taking over, and running
the business one day], with a little more exposure. On
their own they’re already doing that because they’re all
with the company, and I no longer handle the operations on
a day-to-day basis. All my nieces and nephews also help
me,” he says.
But when
asked if he looked up to any entrepreneur, business
executive or CEO, Yao says he admires the Aboitiz family
for their ability to keep the family members united even
in the business, with the companies handed down to the
next generation, to whoever is the most capable of running
it. “They know how to preserve the business within their
family. It’s not necessarily na anak mo ang magpatakbo.
There could be someone better than your child, it could be
your niece or nephew. That’s something I want to learn
from the Aboitizes.”
If he had
to give advice to first-time entrepreneurs, what would it
be? “If you’re just starting in business, get out of your
comfort zone. Being an entrepreneur is really hard work in
the beginning. Keep your focus. But more than anything,
you must take care to earn the respect of your colleagues
and suppliers. You can only do this by having word of
honor in any transaction. Success doesn’t come overnight,
but by being decent and honest in all your dealings, it
will help you in the long run. By word of mouth, people
will know you. ’Pag sinabi mong magbabayad ka ng utang,
for example, magbayad ka. It is sad that nowadays,
this trait, of being trustworthy or having word of honor,
has slowly disappeared. Opportunities come to me because
people know how I do business. I keep my word. And you
have to be fair to everybody, especially your employees.”
Asked
about his present state of mind,
Yao
says he is still on the lookout for other business
opportunities. Right now he is negotiating the purchase of
Seair, and is looking to further expand his consumer
products lines.
“We are
open to acquiring a food line,” he adds, “I don’t close my
eyes to opportunities.”
Like the
man says, he isn’t about to rest just yet. |
