BIZ BUZZ: Filinvest’s secret weapon
In 1955, Filinvest Development Corp. founder Andrew Gotianun had a dream: to build a conglomerate that would both support the women in his family and contribute to nation building.
As told by his daughter, Josephine Gotianun-Yap, Andrew had left Cebu after selling the family’s shipping business and made a leap of faith in an entirely new city.
Newly introduced to the world, Josephine was among the women counting on her dad to pull through. After all, Andrew had made a gamble on Filinvest and borrowed money against the family’s properties, causing “great anxiety,” quipped Josephine.
But as she recalls, Andrew had a secret weapon: family matriarch Mercedes Gotianun, a Manileña and magna cum laude from the University of the Philippines.
“They often quote from the Longfellow poem on Hiawatha to describe their relationship. The quote is about a bow and arrow: useless without each other,” Josephine said, referring to “The Song of Hiawatha” by poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
And 70 years later, Filinvest has become one of the country’s most well-known conglomerates present in nearly every sector.
Now worth P42.2 billion, Filinvest already managed to shatter its revenue and net income record in 2024.
“Anniversaries of business conglomerates are important not so much due to [the conglomerate’s] age per se, but how it has progressively evolved, survived crises and transformed itself into meeting the demands of the times and in contributing to nation building,” Josephine said.
