In 1889, a Manila businessman, Enrique María Barretto de Ycaza y Esteban, applied for a royal grant from
Spain to establish a
brewery in the Philippines. He was awarded the grant for a period of twenty years. On September 29, 1890 (
Michaelmas, or the feast day of Saint
Michael the Archangel),
La Fábrica de Cerveza San Miguel was opened. Located at 6 Calzada de
Malacañan (later renamed Calle conde de Avilés and presently
Jose Laurel Street), the brewery took its name from the
arrabal (suburb or district) where it was located,
San Miguel, Manila. The facility had two sections: one devoted to the production of
ice with a daily capacity of 5 tons, and the other to
beer production. The brewery was the first in Southeast Asia to use modern equipment and facilities. With 70 employees, the plant produced 3,600 hectolitres (about 47,000 cases) of lager beer during the first year and subsequently produced other types of beer, notably Cerveza Negra, Eagle Extra Stout and Doble Bock. Early success led to the expansion of the business and Barretto decided to incorporate his brewery. On June 6, 1893, the company was incorporated and registered with a capital of P180,000. Those forming the corporation were Barretto, Pedro Pablo Róxas y Castro (an ancestor of the
Zobel de Ayala family), Gonzalo Tuasón y Patiño, Vicente D. Fernández y Castro, Albino Goyenechea, Benito Legarda y Tuáson and the heirs of Don Mariano Buenaventura y Chuidan. Pedro Pablo Róxas was appointed manager, playing a prominent role in the development of the firm. He was the most active member of the firm until 1896, when he left for Europe. Prior to his departure, he acquired some of Barretto's shares in the company worth ₱42,000. After Barretto retired in May 1896, Róxas acquired the rest of Barretto's stake in the business. In 1895, San Miguel Beer won its first award as a product of the highest quality at the Exposición Regional de Filipinas. By 1896, San Miguel Beer was outselling all imported beers in the country at a rate greater than five-to-one. The 1900s ushered in a period of prosperity after the
Philippine Revolution and the beginning of the
American Occupation. Demand for beer increased, so San Miguel, still under Róxas' leadership, commenced modernization of their operations including installation of electric conveyors and automatic machines. The brewery's equipment was fully modernised by 1910. During this era, the
Order of Augustinian Recollects came into possession of a large amount shares in San Miguel Corporation.
Incorporated as San Miguel Brewery, Inc. (1913–1963) By 1913, imported beer represented only 12% of the total consumption in the Philippines; San Miguel held an 88% share of the industry. Róxas died in
Paris in 1913. Soon after, Benito Legarda and Gonzalo Tuasón made it advisable to change the form of the company from a firm of co-participants to a corporation (
San Miguel Brewery, Inc.). Róxas's son, Antonio Róxas de Ayala, was appointed president, with Enrique Brías de Coya and
Ramón J. Fernández as managers. By 1914, San Miguel began to export, with its products finding ready markets in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Guam. When the
First World War broke out, exports came to a temporary halt due to difficulties such as shortage of raw materials and the consequent rise in manufacturing costs. It was not until
Prohibition was repealed in the United States that San Miguel was able to resume exports to
Guam and later to
Honolulu. By the end of 1914, Enrique Brías, after seeing that his efforts and industry had resulted in a progressive and prosperous business, retired from active business life in favour of his son, Antonio Brías y Róxas. In 1918, Antonio Róxas resigned from his position as president.
Andrés Soriano Sr.: 1918–1964 Andrés Soriano (a grandson of Pedro Pablo Róxas and a nephew of Antonio Róxas) joined San Miguel as a clerk in the accounting department. In 1918, after the resignation of Antonio Róxas, Ramón J. Fernández assumed the presidency and Soriano was made acting manager. In 1923, Soriano was appointed manager and managed San Miguel together with Antonio Brías y Róxas with increasing success. Diversification into new lines of business began in the 1920s. In 1922, the company opened the Royal Soft Drinks Plant in Manila producing
Royal Tru, other Royal products and aerated water. (In 1919, the company acquired the Oriental Brewery and Ice Company and transformed the building into an ice plant and cold storage; later the Royal Soft Drinks Plant.). Five years later, the company secured the rights to bottle and distribute
Coca-Cola in the Philippines. In 1925, San Miguel went into the ice cream business with the purchase of the
Magnolia Plant on
Calle Avilés which was transferred a year later to a new site on Calle Echague (now, C. Palanca Sr. Street) in
Quiapo District,
Manila. This new site used to house the Fábrica de Hielo de Manila was bought by San Miguel in 1924. To achieve greater self-sufficiency in its operations, the firm opened a new plant in 1930 to produce carbon dioxide for its soft drinks products, and dry ice for the refrigeration needs of its ice cream products. In 1932, a plant was set up to produce compressed yeast for bakeries and medical use. The following year, the company leased the
Insular Ice Plant from the government for a period of ten years. During the 1930s, San Miguel began investing in businesses overseas. The company set up a short-lived dairy business in Calcutta, India and Singapore (Cold Storage Creameries, Singapore), and invested in breweries in the United States (a stake in the
George Muehlebach Brewing Company and majority holding in the
Lone Star Brewing Company located in San Antonio, Texas). In 1939, the management structure of the company was reorganized to be more like other American corporations. San Miguel's management team was made up of the board of directors (president, vice-president, treasurer and nine directors and the executive officers of the corporation). Ramón J. Fernández was elected president of the board of directors and Antonio Róxas y Gargollo (a son of Antonio Róxas) was elected vice-president. Soriano was elected president of the corporation, with Antonio Brías y Róxas as vice president. Eduardo Róxas y Gargollo (another son of Don Antonio Róxas) and Jacobo Zóbel y Róxas were appointed directors. Expanding and modernizing the company, however, required the dilution of family control. San Miguel became the first Filipino company to be jointly owned by many shareholders. To retain control, Soriano relied on alliances with his Róxas relatives and associates. Before
World War II broke out, San Miguel built a glass factory in
Paco and the
Cebu Royal plant, its first installation outside
Luzon. When the war reached the Philippines, Soriano was commissioned as a
colonel and served as an aide to General
Douglas MacArthur. One of the first Filipino
brewmasters was Dominador San Diego Santos, a chemist from
Obando, Bulacan. After the war, San Miguel rebuilt and mounted a large scale expansion program. It acquired and modernized a second brewery in Polo,
Bulacán (now part of
Valenzuela City) in 1947. Two years later, five other plants were opened: the Farola glass plant and power plant (
San Nicolas, Manila), a carbon dioxide plant in Otis Street (
Paco, Manila), a carton plant and the
Iloílo Coca-Cola plant. Exports of
San Miguel Pale Pilsen resumed, and new soft drink plants followed in
Davao and
Naga. In 1953, Soriano signed the Manila Agreement which allowed the Spanish company La Segarra S.A. to brew and sell San Miguel Beer in Spain. La Segarra S.A., renamed San Miguel, Fábricas de Cerveza y Malta (now
Mahou-San Miguel Group) in 1957, was a separate, independent company that had exclusive rights to use the San Miguel brand in Europe.
San Miguel Corporation (1963–present) Andrés Soriano Jr.: 1963–1984 In 1963, the company's name was changed to
San Miguel Corporation (SMC) and moved to a new head office along
Ayala Avenue in
Makati. Andrés Soriano died on December 30, 1964. At the time of his death, Soriano had parlayed his family's vast San Miguel fortune into
mining,
dairies, factories, a
newspaper and a
radio station. He had investments in
Philippine Airlines, held the largest Coca-Cola franchise, and owned five
insurance agency distributorships, a
Kansas City brewery that made
Lone Star and
Colt 45,
gold mines in
British East Africa and a development company in
Spain. Following Soriano's death, Antonio Róxas y Gargollo was elected chairman and
Andrés Soriano Jr. became president. Soriano Jr. would become chairman in 1967 and was credited with instituting modern management, including decentralization along product lines. The
Mandaue,
Cebu complex was inaugurated in 1967 – its brewery and glass plant commenced operations a year later. Soriano Jr. continued to diversify the food business, building an
ice cream plant in 1970 and expanding into
poultry production in 1973 (it later added
shrimp processing and freezing in 1984). By 1973, SMC sales exceeded a billion pesos for the first time and profits topped the hundred-million-peso mark. A new corporate logo was adopted in 1975. The San Miguel
escudo (
seal), symbol of the royal grant, was retained as the logo of San Miguel Beer, its original grantee. SMC encountered its first major competitor in the Philippine beer market in 1982 with the entry of
Asia Brewery, Inc. The rivalry between Asia Brewery and SMC came to a head in 1988, when Asia Brewery cannily introduced a bargain-priced brand called simply, "Beer" (also known as Beer Pale Pilsen and "Beer na Beer"). The product looked and tasted like San Miguel Beer, playing upon the fact that in the Philippines, the San Miguel brand was synonymous with beer. It was a creative counter to SMC's notoriously aggressive and sometimes cutthroat competitive strategy, which had reportedly included "attempts to sabotage Asia Brewery's sales network and smash its empty bottles." Asia Brewery even hired away San Miguel's brew master. At that time, the original San Miguel Brewery buildings in
San Miguel, Manila were demolished upon transfer of ownership to the Philippine Government, and became part of the
Malacañang Palace grounds. The site became a park while some became part of the government complex (as the new executive building). In 1983, SMC sold its remaining minority interest in the Spanish company (
San Miguel, Fábricas de Cerveza y Malta, S.A.). The Philippine and Spanish companies have been operated independently of one another. In 2010, SMC acquired majority control of
Petron Corporation. In April 2012, SMC bought a 49% minority stake in
Philippine Airlines (PAL) Holdings, worth US$500 million, to revitalize PAL and
Air Philippines. On September 15, 2014, SMC sold its stake in PAL holdings for approximately $1.3 billion and relinquished management control back to the group of
Lucio Tan. SMC has also expanded its oil and energy business with the purchase of
Esso Malaysia Berhad (65%),
ExxonMobil Borneo Sdn Bhd (100%) and
ExxonMobil Malaysia Sdn Bhd (100%) for US$577.3 million. In October 2012, SMC bought back the 24% of SMC shares held by the government through Coconut Industry Investment Fund (CIIF) companies by paying CIIF P57.6 billion. By 2017, Iñigo Zóbel, son of Enrique J. Zóbel, became the largest common stock shareholder of SMC owning 66.1% through his holding company, Top Frontier Investment Holdings, Inc. On November 6, 2017, SMC announced the consolidation of its beverage businesses into
San Miguel Pure Foods Company, Inc. through a $6.6-billion share swap deal. San Miguel Pure Foods Company will acquire 7.86 billion shares in
San Miguel Brewery Inc. and 216.97 million shares in
Ginebra San Miguel Inc. from SMC. After the consolidation, San Miguel Pure Foods Company will be renamed San Miguel Food and Beverage, Inc.
Ramon S. Ang: 2020–present On June 16, 2020, Cojuangco died at the age of 85 due to heart failure and pneumonia. On April 15, 2021, ten months following the death of Cojuangco, SMC amended its by-laws to unify the role, functions and duties of chief executive officer (CEO) to that of the president. Based on the PSE disclosure following the 2021 annual stockholders' meeting of SMC, Ang remains as vice-chairman, president (CEO) and COO of the company. As of the June 8, 2021, organizational meeting, the position of chairman of the board of directors remains vacant. From August to September 2022, Iñigo U. Zobel sold a total of 86.432 million shares, this reduced his ownership to 1.487 billion shares or 62.36 percent. On June 10, 2024, Ang became the chairman and CEO, and his eldest son, John Paul L. Ang, assumed the positions of vice-chairman, president and COO. SMC shall amend its by-laws to redefine the roles, functions and duties of the chairman and chief executive officer, and the president and chief operating officer, subject to stockholders and SEC approvals. ==Subsidiaries==