Gokongwei’s JG Summit in Forbes Asia’s ‘Fab 50’ list

Manila—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 U.S. 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. /INQUIRER