Ever Gotesco Malls
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| Shopping malls | |
| Industry | Retail industry |
| Founded | C.M. Recto Ave., Manila, Philippines (1972) |
| Headquarters | C.M. Recto Ave., Sta. Cruz, Manila, Philippines |
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Number of locations
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2 branches (as of January 1, 2016) |
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Area served
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Metro Manila |
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Key people
|
Jose Go (Founder and CEO) |
| Website | Ever Gotesco Malls Facebook Page |
Ever Gotesco Malls Group of Companies, under the trade name Ever Gotesco Malls, is a shopping mall and retail operator in Metro Manila. It was incorporated on 1972 by Chinese Filipino entrepreneur Jose Go, whose main vision was to develop, conduct, operate and maintain affordable and accessible commercial shopping malls for the Filipino masses. Its main competitors are: Isetann, Gaisano, Megaworld Lifestyle Malls, Walter Mart Malls, Ortigas Malls, Starmalls, Robinsons Malls, SM Prime Holdings and Ayala Malls. It has 2 branches as of New Year's Day 2016.
Ever Gotesco Malls Group of Companies launched in 1972 when Jose Go, aged 24, opened the five-story Ever Emporium on C.M. Recto Ave. in Downtown Manila.
The declaration of martial law by then President Marcos helped his business take off, as the economy was continuously boosting and prices of commodities were kept in check. Go took advantage of the low-priced merchandise and was one of the pioneers of one-stop shopping. His store sold low-priced goods to thousands of low-income students who survived on small allowances. The huge volumes sold made up for the goods' 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, North Caloocan, and a hot springs resort in Laguna. He bought a small bank (that later became his biggest headache), a golf course in Tagaytay, and purchase 20 percent worth of stocks in a paging company.
His goal then was ambitious: to build a $2-billion retail-and-property conglomerate that churns out $350 million a year. Unfortunately, the Asian financial crisis, 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.
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Wikipedia