President Rodrigo Roa Duterte on Sunday night, January 20, visited the wake of SM Group founder Henry Sy, who passed away in his sleep on Saturday morning, January 19.
President Duterte arrived at 10:50 P.M. at the Heritage Park to pay his last respects to Henry Sy.
The President then expressed his sincerest condolences to Sy’s family. Duterte stayed for more than an hour before leaving the vicinity.
Henry Sy, a Chinese immigrant, was hailed as the Philippines’ richest person from 2005 to 2018 and 52nd richest person in the world, according to Forbes.
Sy started his business empire from a small shoe business in 1958 in downtown Manila known as Shoe Mart, which the SM chain of malls was named after. In 2018, SM Investments said it had 70 malls in the Philippines and seven in China.
The businesses owned by Henry Sy and the SM Group now are retail, banking, property, mining, and gaming.
Aside from businesses in the Philippines, Sy has also invested in China by establishing SM malls there.
Sy’s family, according to a report by Town and Country Philippines, originally hails from Xiamen, China and moved to the Philippines during World War II.
The report said Sy opted to stay in the Philippines with only 10 centavos even when his family returned to their homeland. (PCOO)
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