Henry Sy

We all know Henry Sy as one of the richest tycoons in the Philippines. However, not all
people know what happened before all these achievements came into his life. Born in Xiamen,
China in November 1924, Henry Sy was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Because he
wanted to escape poverty, he followed his father in the Philippines. Determined to become
successful, he worked hard day and night to provide for his needs. Sy started out with a small
sari-sari store business that helped them in their day-to-day life. But this store burned down
because of the World War II, and this forced his father to go back to china. Sy stayed in the
Philippines and built his own shoe business in Marikina.

Sy did not have an overnight success: he had to enroll himself in school, change legal
names, sell rejected and overrun shoes, plus many other setbacks that he had to face early in
life. After a series of failures in his business, Henry Sy stood back up and persevered to attain
his goal. He established a small shoe store in Quiapo, Manila that later marked the start of the
greatest establishment of SM Prime Holdings now valued over 1 trillion pesos, he is now the
ranked 52nd richest man in the world.