JG Summit lands on Forbes Asia’s “Fab 50” list for 2nd year in row

MANILA, Philippines—JG Summit Holdings, the conglomerate led by the family of taipan John Gokongwei, made it to Forbes Magazine Asia’s 2012 “Fab 50” list, which the magazine deems as the “best of the best” among Asia-Pacific’s biggest publicly listed companies.

JG Summit made it to Forbes Magazine Asia’s list of “the truly great ones” for the second year in a row, a rarity in a list dominated by blue chips from China and India.

Forbes said the 50 were selected from a pool of 1,295 companies that raked in at least $3 billion in annual revenue or market capitalization. They were handpicked based on revenue, earnings, return on capital share-price movements and the outlook, the leading business and financial magazine said.

The magazine noted that JG Summit was on this list because of its “solid financial track records coupled with great management and entrepreneurial skill.”

This year’s Fab 50 list was dominated by Chinese companies, with 23 entries, followed by India (11) and South Korea (4). Australia, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Thailand each had two representatives while Japan, Malaysia, Philippines and Singapore each had one on the list.

The magazine recognized that JG Summit’s “expected earnings-per-share growth next year is the highest of the 50.” It noted the 38 percent increase in the Philippines conglomerate’s market capitalization over the past 12 months.

“A slowing economy weeds out the merely good companies from the truly great ones. So this year’s list of the 50 best publicly traded companies in Asia-Pacific is a roll call of outfits that have managed to thrive amid decelerating growth in Asia and all but nonexistent growth in their US and European markets,” the magazine said in its August issue.

The elite list was topped by Hong Kong’s Noble Group, which the magazine noted had been on the list for seven straight years, the longest streak of any company since it started started picking out the region’s 2005. “It suffered a rare quarterly loss a year ago, overhauled its management and got back on course,” the magazine said.

The magazine said that in terms of industry, technology companies dominated its list this year with 11 representatives, up from eight last year. “The consumer durables industry has the second most representatives with eight companies followed by retailing with five members,” it said.

JG Summit is a holding company that owns two-thirds of budget airline Cebu Pacific and has business interests in branded consumer food, agro-industrial and commodity food products, property development and hotel management, petrochemicals, and international capital and financial services.

Earlier this year, a research by CLSA Asia-Pacific said this conglomerate led by “industrialist challenger” John Gokongwei was back in the limelight as a beneficiary of the Philippines’ strong consumption story and budding gaming and tourism sectors.

The CLSA report said Gokongwei’s early experiences as a trader/importer in early 1950s “forged the underlying principle of JG Summit’s time-tested formula for success: challenging the incumbents of an underserviced market and bringing into them the ‘Gokongwei brand’ of operational efficiency and synergy.”

“The very strategy that transformed JG Summit from a meek proprietorship into the industry giant that it is today is the same core principle that drives the conglomerate as it enhances its domestic portfolio and market reach outside of the Philippines,” the CLSA report said.