Gokongwei Gives Away Billions on His Birthday

An article published in The Business Mirror, August 14, 2006
By Emeterio Sd Perez
 

BUSINESSMAN John L. Gokongwei Jr. celebrated his 80th birthday and the 50th anniversary of the JG Summit group on Saturday with surprises worth in several billion of pesos.

“I am donating P50 million to the College of Engineering of the University of San Carlos,” Gokongwei told his guests, composed of business partners and JG Summit executives.

The first one was met with a big applause from the guests who filled the grand ballroom of the Crowne Plaza adjacent to Holiday Inn in Ortigas. The two hotels are both owned by the Gokongweis.

Then, he went on reading his prepared birthday speech even before his guests could recover from their excitement generated by his first donation of the night.

“I am giving one-half of my shares [in JG Summit Holdings] to the Gokongwei Brothers Foundation,” he then said.

That was “John” as son Lance addressed him in a brief talk about his father, speaking again. And the guests gave him an even louder and longer applause. There were whispers as to how much his donation in shares of stock would be worth.

The Gokongwei Brothers Foundation is the family's corporate vehicle in sharing their wealth, which Gokongwei, said has given “P400 million in the last five years” to various charitable causes.

JG Summit is the listed holding company of the Gokongwei family. It owns three companies which are also traded on the Philippine Stock Exchange.

As of June 30, 2006, Gokongwei directly owns 1,734,450,649 JG Summit shares. The block is equivalent to 15.51 percent of outstanding shares.

Outstanding shares are those held by existing stockholders, excluding issued shares bought back by the company.

Computed at its P6.20 closing price on Friday, John's holdings had a market value of over close to P11 billion—P10,753,594,023.80 exactly, half of which equals P5,376,797,011.90.
 

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