THE GAISANOS, Ayalas of the South
Little is known about the Gaisano family of Cebu, but in the Visayas where their shopping malls are a pervasive presence, they are known as the "Ayalas of the South."

Like many Filipino business clans, the retail chain was founded in the 1970s by the family matriarch, Doña Modesta Gaisano, who opened a small restaurant-cum-shop on the ground floor of a rented house in Colon, Cebu. The shop later became the White Gold Department Store, predecessor of the Gaisano malls.

Doña Modesta's five sons — David, Stephen, Henry, Victor, and John — helped her transform the business into a retail giant. In 1981, after the death of the matriarch, the corporation that ran the White Gold department stores was split into five, as the sons decided to go their separate ways.

The family's mall chains are now run by the second-generation Gaisanos and their cousins. Stephen Gaisano, Jr., son of Stephen Sr., operates the Gaisano Country Malls in Cebu and Cagayan de Oro. John Gaisano, Jr., president of the Davao Chamber of Commerce and Industry, runs the Gaisano Ilustre in Cebu, while the other cousins are involved in other mall-related businesses.

The family's flagship firm is the DSG Sons Group, Inc. (which stands for David S. Gaisano Sr.), which owns and operates the four biggest malls in Mindanao. In the late 1980s, the group opened stores in Digos, Tagum, General Santos City, and Davao City.

JOSE GO, Discount King
Because he positioned his shopping malls to cater to the unserved low-income "C" and "D" market and successfully turned his business into a billion-peso empire, Jose Go earned the moniker, "Discount King." He was, however, a victim of his own success, as his rapid expansion eventually caused his business to founder.

The commerce graduate was just 24 when he opened the five-story Ever Emporium on C.M. Recto Ave. in downtown Manila. That was 1972, when the area, known as the University Belt, was the main staging ground for student rallies. Go stuck it out amid the violent protests that kept customers away from his store.

But the declaration of martial law ended the rallies and initially boosted the economy as prices of commodities were kept in check. Go took advantage of the low-priced merchandise and introduced the concept of one-stop shopping. His store sold low-priced goods to thousands of low-income students who survived on small allowances. The volumes made up for the thin margins.

By 1975, Go had made Ever Emporium a popular retail name. From Recto, he expanded to Caloocan City, where he built the $6-million, 40,000-square meter Ever Gotesco mall that lured the low- to middle-income residents of the populous city to shop in droves.

With two major shopping malls in the capital and two more elsewhere, Go formed Ever Gotesco Resources and Holdings (EGRH) in 1996. An initial public offering (IPO) that year gave him enough ammunition to expand into uncharted territory.

EGRH acquired a struggling, publicly listed mining company called Suricon that was later renamed Gotesco Land. He also invested in a housing project in Bulacan and a hot springs resort in Laguna. He bought a small bank that later became his biggest headache, a golf course in Tagaytay, and 20 percent of a paging company.

His goal then was ambitious: to build a $2-billion retail-and-property conglomerate that churns out $350 million a year. The Asian financial crisis, however, caught him aggressively expanding into other businesses using borrowed dollars. The crisis doubled his debts and forced him to tap into the deposits of his wholly owned Orient Commercial Banking Corp.

The bank went down in history as the first victim of the Asian crisis when it closed on Valentine's Day, 1998. Until now, Go is still fighting the foreclosure of his assets by the central bank, which lent over P8 billion to Orient Bank. He is also facing multibillion-peso lawsuits and all his properties have been garnished by the courts.

JIMMY GOW, Bankrupt Retailer
To bankers and traders who have closely followed the business cycles of the retail taipans, Jimmy Gow is considered the twin brother of Jose Go when it comes to bad luck. The fate of the Uniwide Group resembles that of Ever Gotesco because both cater to the same low-income market and suffered from the same overexpansion binge.

The Uniwide Group traces its roots to 1975 when Gow set up the Uniwide Sales Textile Bargaining House Center. Like Ever Gotesco, the store was a one-stop-shop that offered mostly clothes at bargain prices.

In August 1996, the same year Ever Gotesco was listed on the stock exchange, Uniwide Holdings Inc. also had an IPO. From proceeds of around P5 billion in fresh capital, the Uniwide Group diversified into real-estate development and theme park operations.

The Uniwide Sales Coastal Mall in Parañaque, its biggest shopping mall complex, was already 90-percent complete when the Asian crisis hit, stalling further construction. The crisis also ended plans for a Uniwide department store in Cubao, three warehouse club buildings in Bacolod, Cebu, and Cavite, and five more shopping malls in Luzon. The group also had to defer the construction of the Dream World Complex, a theme park in Naic, Cavite.

Crumbling under the weight of his companies' debts, Gow ran to the Securities and Exchange Commission to temporarily stop his creditors from collecting. His Uniwide Holdings and its subsidiaries had piled up P11 billion in debts and were among the biggest corporate bankruptcies in Philippine history.

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