True grit: EKR takes Filipino business to global arena

Never scoff at or look down on a school dropout, for you'll never know where and how that person will end up.

The youngest and the only one of Enrique "Pocholo"'s five children with any appetite for working in such a tough environment as the ports, EKR quit school when he was only 17 to take on a minimum-wage job in the marine cargo handling business founded by his paternal grandfather when he came to the Philippines from Spain to establish the main port in Manila's South Harbor in 1916.

EKR's father, who continued to grow the business post-World War 2, was not too happy about his son's dropping out of school to work at such a young age with nary an academic credential, but EKR — always known for his tenacity — persisted. The young man was insistent that he would gain the kind of knowledge he needed to pursue something he was interested in by doing actual ground work, rather than spending any length of time inside classrooms trying to learn things he believed were not of much use in the family business. "I learned the business from the ground up, or rather, from the water," he told Fortune, in an interview well over a decade ago.

He also said his father had tried to make things impossibly difficult for him at work "so I would not last a week and I'd go back to school. But I was determined that it was not going to happen. To me that's where the action is (the ports); it wasn't in a classroom. I'd rather be out there."

EKR worked his way up the ranks until he gained entry into the boardroom. Ports privatization in 1988 was a turning point, with the Razons and the A. Soriano group joining hands to incorporate International Container Terminal Services Inc., which went on to bid for and win the contract to run the Manila International Container Terminal.

One of the three terminals at the Port of Manila and a dedicated container terminal, MICT handles, in the main, international containerized cargo.

Four years later, in 1992, ICTSI — now ranked by Hong Kong-based Asia Money & Finance as one of the country's best-managed business entities — launched its IPO. In 1994, it rolled out its expansion program internationally and, a year later, after his father's demise in 1995, EKR was named chairman of the company.

In a speech he delivered after being conferred an honorary degree in management by the Asian Institute of Management in December 2022 (his second, after receiving his first in 2019, an honorary Doctor of Science in Logistics degree from De La Salle University), EKR gave what perhaps could be regarded as his wisest advice to anyone, whether in business or in any other field of endeavor: "Always be prepared for a crisis, and prepare for the inevitable crisis during the good times."

When the Covid-19 pandemic came, he built a P250-million vaccination facility with the capacity to inoculate up to 15,000 individuals on a daily basis. By yearend 2021, the Razon group had invested as much as P1.5 billion, bringing Moderna vaccines into the country and dispensing over 300,000 vaccine shots.

After three decades and a half with EKR at the helm as chairman and president, listed ICTSI — the largest port operator in the Philippines and one of the largest in the world — has become the one stellar-run Philippine multinational company whose global operational span includes 35 container ports and terminals located in 20 countries on six continents.

Earlier on, after only two years since he assumed the chairmanship of ICTSI in 1995 and while he was starting to surge forth with his expansion plan overseas, i.e., initially to Argentina, he ran right smack into the Asian financial crisis of 1997.

The Philippines depreciated its exchange rate, and ICTSI was swamped with debts, hindering its plans for global expansion. Most of the company's external assets were sold to Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing's Hutchison Whampoa.

Yet, in no time, EKR was able to pull through, and after bouncing back, continued to push his expansion plans forward, even buying out the Sorianos' 23-percent stake in ICTSI to gain control of the company.

He grew the business quite rapidly and, currently, other than operating the Philippines' largest international container terminal in terms of volume and capacity with nearly 65 percent share in the Port of Manila, ICTSI also runs eight other port terminals across the country.

Meanwhile, the man who started his career as a minimum-wage earning school dropout working at the docks has grown to become the Philippines' third richest man, with a net worth in 2023 estimated by Forbes at US$ 8.1 billion.

Admired by his peers for his business acumen and leadership skills, his honesty and strategic vision, EKR has expanded his businesses which now include listed Bloomberry Resorts Corp., owner of the $2.22-billion Solaire Resort and Casino; listed Manila Water Company which is the private concessionaire of the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System serving the East Zone of Metro Manila and Rizal; and Prime Infrastructure Capital Inc., which has acquired an operating stake in the Malampaya deep water gas-to-power project producing natural gas and supplying up to 20 percent of Luzon's total electricity requirement.

Also, under Prime Infra is the Wawa Bulk Water national flagship infrastructure project aimed at ensuring water security in Metro Manila and Rizal. Once done with Phase 2, the facility will be able to deliver at least 518 million liters of water daily.

EKR has likewise partnered with top nuclear energy firm, Oregon,
US-based NuScale Power Corporation, which is known for developing small modular reactors (SMRs), that is, small nuclear fission reactors described as modular, scalable and safe.

In a meeting with President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. in Washington, D.C. during his last trip to the US, NuScale executives said they would like to conduct a study as to where best to locate SMRs around the Philippines.

President Marcos indicated his interest in what he said could very well fill the shortfall in Philippine power supply. "We need everything (that could fill the supply shortfall) and this new technology is something we could consider," he told the NuScale group, with EKR present.

With a solid track record in launching successful milestone projects, EKR's strategic venture into SMRs, i.e., nuclear power, could well usher in a milestone era of cheap, clean energy, which would fuel the country's progress and transform dreams of a prosperous, industrialized, modern Philippines into reality.