The Eighth-Generation Heir Driving Big Changes At Philippines' Oldest Conglomerate Ayala

Forbes

6 hours ago

M ariana Beatriz Zobel de Ayala was a 24-year-old equity analyst working on Wall Street over a decade ago, when she got a call from her father, Jaime Augusto. The chairman of the Philippines' oldest conglomerate, Ayala Corp., nudged his eldest daughter to come home. 'He hinted at opportunities in the Philippines,' Mariana recalls. There was never any pressure, she hastens to add, with the option of returning to New York left on the table. Her sense of duty won out and she quit her job at JPMorgan: 'It was the right thing to do.'
After spending 12 years learning the ropes in various roles across the 191-year-old banking-to-property group, Mariana, 36, was appointed this March as a managing director at Ayala Corp. She's tasked with sprucing up its vast leasing portfolio of aging malls, office buildings and hotels—a number of which sprung up after Ayala Corp. spun off its expanding real estate division in 1988 and listed Ayala Land three years later.
Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala, chairman of Ayala Corp. Courtesy of Ayala Corp.
Jaime Alfonso Zobel de Ayala, CEO of AC Mobility. Courtesy of Ayala Corp.
At the same time as her elevation, her brother Jaime Alfonso, 34, and cousin Jaime Urquijo, 37, were named executive directors at the group. With these promotions, Ayala Corp. said, the next-generation of leaders was in place to drive its future growth.
'We're firing on all cylinders in the next few years,' Mariana tells Forbes Asia from her top-floor office at the 39-story Ayala Triangle Gardens Tower 2, in Makati City, home to Ayala Corp. and other Philippine corporate giants, such as noodle maker Monde Nissin and telecoms firm PLDT. The booming financial hub was the family's first real estate development, carved out from vast tracts of agricultural land acquired when the Philippines was still a colony of Spain.
As one of the stewards of a storied legacy and with her dad's office just a few doors away from hers, the Harvard-and-Insead grad isn't taking things lightly. 'We've seen how the prior generations charted new paths,' she says. 'That's something we hope we can continue to do.'
Jaime Urquijo, chief sustainability and risk officer of Ayala Corp. Courtesy of Ayala Corp.
While her brother is charged with the group's EV infrastructure and car distribution businesses as CEO of AC Mobility, and cousin Jaime Urquijo targets ESG deliverables as Ayala Corp.'s chief sustainability and risk officer, Mariana has her work cut out for her at Ayala Land, the nation's second-largest property developer by market cap ($6.5 billion).
Mariana is working with its president and CEO Anna Ma. Margarita B. Dy as the group undertakes one of its biggest capital investments to date: $2.5 billion to be spent on expanding Ayala Land's footprint across the country over the next five years. 'It's not just about our family shareholders, we have public shareholders too,' Mariana says. 'It's a huge responsibility.'
'We're firing on all cylinders in the next few years.'
The masterplan includes a $1.5 billion makeover of its retail properties: On the to-do list is refurbishing eight of its 34 malls and building new ones to add 700,000 square meters of gross leasable area (GLA) by 2028 to the current 2.2 million square meters. Several Ayala-owned hotels and resorts, operating under homegrown brands Seda Hotels and El Nido Resorts, are also slated for redevelopment alongside plans to seek new global brand partners. And this year will see the launch of Ayala Land's first two 'technohubs,' purpose-built buildings for science and tech companies. Firm Foundation Ayala Land's portfolio of shopping malls, office buildings and hotels makes up about a third of revenue.
'Our malls, offices and hotels provide a steady stream of recurring income that complements the dynamic nature of our property development business,' Dy says by email. 'Under [Mariana's] leadership, we're not just renovating spaces, we're reimagining them...shaping environments that reflect the evolving needs of a new generation of users.'
Ayala Land isn't a laggard by any stretch. It posted record revenue in 2024 of 181 billion pesos, up by a fifth from a year earlier. But future-proofing is a key priority, says Benjamin Garcia, head of research at AP Securities in Manila—in particular, reducing its reliance on cyclical residential sales, currently the biggest contributor to the company's top line. Then there are its deep-pocketed rivals to contend with.
SM Prime, the country's biggest mall developer with 88 malls and 10 million square meters of GLA, owned by the Sy siblings (No. 1 on the list of Philippines' 50 Richest), is spending 10 billion pesos to add seven new hotels to its hospitality portfolio. Robinson Land, controlled by Lance Gokongwei and his family (No. 14), in June hived off nine of its 56 shopping malls into a commercial REIT to bankroll expansion plans. Meanwhile property-to-spirits billionaire Andrew Tan's (No. 15) real estate arm Megaworld is building new resorts outside of Metro Manila and recently partnered with French hotel chain Accor.
An artist impression of the Greenbelt 1 shopping center, expected to be completed by 2028. courtesy of Ayala Land
S ince joining Ayala Land in 2015, after two years with the parent company's strategy and business development team, Mariana has learned first-hand the perils of underestimating competitors. She cut her teeth as a project manager at The 30th Corporate Center, a 19-story mixed-use building east of Manila, becoming general manager of the mall when it opened two years later. While its office tower is almost fully leased, the shopping mall is about 80% occupied—well below the company's targeted occupancy benchmark of 95%.
In hindsight, Mariana says she and her team made the mistake of assuming that with the Ayala brand, 'if we build a mall, people will come.' They also too easily dismissed its proximity to the Sys' SM Megamall, which sits about a kilometer away. 'That early grounding gave her a deep understanding of the business from the ground up,' says Dy.
The budget of 18 billion pesos for upgrading its four flagship malls, three in Metro Manila and one in Cebu, starting this year, will be strategically spent. 'I want to ensure that our malls don't just serve the community around them, but there's a reason for people to visit,' Mariana explains. 'Each mall should have a story.'
At the fore is Greenbelt 1 in Makati, the group's oldest shopping center of 1980s vintage, that was demolished last year. In its place will rise a new mixed-use complex designed by American architectural firm Gensler, which, she says, is known for combining a global outlook with a local sensibility. (Its projects include converting a freight terminal in New York's Hudson Square into a workplace for Google.) With such elements as a rainwater collection system for its three-hectare garden, 'it will be one of our most premium developments,' says Mariana. Growth Pillars Ayala Corp.'s crown jewels, Bank of the Philippine Islands and Ayala Land, continued to be the biggest contributors to core net profit last year.
She's lining up a slew of luxury brands for its 2028 reopening. Ayala Land already counts Balenciaga, Hermès and Louis Vuitton among its high-end tenants. 'This goes to show the strength of the demand from the premium side, which has always been their key market,' says Raffy Mendoza, a Manila-based analyst at Maybank Securities. The company has lately been churning its retail mix, adding such brands as Singaporean fashion chain Love, Bonito, New York-headquartered perfume maker Le Labo and Australian home and lifestyle brand Anko.
Despite the encroachment of online shopping, Mariana remains a firm believer of brick-and-motar retail. 'Because the Philippines doesn't have a lot of public parks, malls serve as a gathering place for friends and families,' she explains. While malls accounted for 23 billion pesos, or 13% of Ayala Land's revenue in 2024, residential projects made up the lion's share of its sales, though growth in that segment slowed in the first quarter of 2025. In a recent research note, Jelline Gaza, an analyst at JPMorgan in Manila, attributes the sluggish offtake to an oversupply of condos in Metro Manila.
An artist impression of the BPI Tower, slated for completion in 2029. Bank of the Philippine Islands
Empty offices are also on the rise in the capital city, and with global tensions keeping interest rates high and borrowing costs elevated (the company's debt rose 9% to 282 billion pesos last year), Ayala Land shares took a knock, dropping nearly 20% in the past 12 months. Office vacancy rates in Metro Manila stood at 18% in the first half of 2025 as tenants vacated about 470,000 square meters of office space, according to Leechiu Property Consultants.
Despite the supply glut, Ayala Land will deploy 28.6 billion pesos to grow its office portfolio. Mariana counters that demand in prime locations remains strong and convenience is key. The company says it has achieved an average vacancy rate of 9% across its office buildings, including at One Ayala, a mixed-use retail and office property with direct links to commuter rail and a bus interchange.
Mariana's also involved in the renovation of Ayala Triangle Gardens Tower 1—built in 1996—which will offer amenities such as daycare centers and gyms to keep tenants sticky. Across the business hub's main street—Ayala Avenue—the company is constructing the new headquarters for Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI), another of Ayala Corp.'s crown jewels. The 45-story office tower of the country's second-most valuable bank is set to redefine Makati's skyline when completed in 2029. With the upcoming technology hubs in Laguna, south of Manila, and in the central Philippine province of Iloilo, the company's gross leasable office space will increase 26% to about 1.8 million square meters by then.
The Ayala Triangle Gardens Tower 2, headquarters of Ayala Corp. Courtesy of Ayala Land
O n another front, Ayala Land is going all out to grow its hospitality portfolio, betting on a travel boom. The company will spend $500 million on renovations and new builds to almost double its current room count to 8,000 by 2030. In May, it bought 578-room New World Makati for an undisclosed amount from Hong Kong-based New World Development, the debt-laden company controlled by Henry Cheng and his family.
'Tourism is largely untapped in the country,' Mariana says. 'With minimal incremental investments, we could reap major benefits.' While tourist arrivals increased nearly 9% to 5.4 million in 2024, that number is way below the 8.3 million peak set in 2019 just before the Covid-19 pandemic, government data show.
The Seda Hotel at the Bonifacio Global City, near Makati. Courtesy of Ayala Land
Revenue from the hospitality business increased 10% to 2.6 billion pesos in the first quarter after rising 11% to 9.7 billion pesos in the whole of 2024, according to Ayala Land. 'Our hotels are doing very well,' Mariana says, adding that in March, hotel room rates at their luxe El Nido Resorts in Palawan jumped almost 80% on average from a year earlier, thanks to high demand for their island villas that can cost upward of $1,000 a night. And in addition to expanding its Seda business hotel group, which manages almost 3,300 rooms across 12 properties, on the anvil are two new homegrown brands to offer tourists Filipino-style hospitality, says Mariana.
"Tourism is largely untapped in the country. With minimal investments, we could reap major benefits."
'We're constantly talking to international hotel companies for potential partnerships,' she adds. Ayala Land is set to open the 276-room Mandarin Oriental at its Makati complex next year, and its latest project is a 260-room hotel under Marriott's Moxy brand, to open in late 2026 at an Ayala mixed-use estate on the edge of Makati. It also owns three hotels managed by Fairmont, Holiday Inn and Raffles. 'Property developers really have to diversify their revenue streams away from residential, and hotels seem like the best choice,' AP Securities' Garcia says.
Geric Cruz for Forbes Asia
O ver the past three decades, Mariana's father Jaime Augusto and uncle Fernando Zobel de Ayala have steered Ayala Corp., branching from its mainstay businesses of banking and property into telecoms and utilities and lately into education and healthcare. But BPI and Ayala Land remain the group's biggest cash generators, accounting for about 95% of 2024 core net profit of 45 billion pesos.
Last year, Ayala Corp. rebranded its automotive subsidiary AC Motors as AC Mobility, the largest distributor (by dealership) for Japanese automakers Honda and Isuzu Motors in the Philippines, which under Jaime Alfonso, is stepping up the distribution of China's BYD electric vehicles in the country. It's also installed 226 EV charging stations nationwide and plans to expand the network to over 700 by year end. Meantime, under Jaime Urquijo's watch, Ayala Corp. cut its greenhouse gas emissions by a quarter in 2023 compared with 2021 levels, and is on track to realize the group's net zero target by 2050.
Mariana says her father's big theme for the group is to build more consumer-focused businesses and that resonates with her. 'I love thinking about what's going to excite Filipino consumers,' she says. While she appreciates her father's counsel, she says she's learnt the most by observing how he makes decisions: 'He stays true to his values even when he encounters rough winds.'
Jaime Zobel de Ayala (in 2014, the group's 180th anniversary.) Edwin Tuyay/Bloomberg Frontier Family
A yala Corp. traces its roots to 1834 when Antonio de Ayala and Domingo Roxas built a distillery to make a juniper-flavored liquor called Ginebra San Miguel. (That eventually morphed into a gin-production company, today's largest by volume, owned by billionaire Ramon Ang.) Antonio, whose daughter married a Zobel, was later named a director of the Philippines' first bank, the predecessor to Bank of the Philippine Islands.
The family began developing Hacienda Makati in the late 1940s, which had been the site of the country's first commercial airport, later turned by the Americans into an airbase during World War II. Joseph McMicking, a colonel who married Mercedes Zobel de Ayala from the fifth generation, created the blueprint that would transform the virtual grassland into the country's financial capital.
Jaime Zobel de Ayala, 91, Mariana's grandfather, under whom the family's $3.4 billion fortune is listed at No. 7, took the helm in 1983 when his cousin, Enrique Zobel (d. 2004) retired. Amid political and economic turmoil, which led to the ouster of late President Ferdinand Marcos Sr., Jaime steadied the ship, listing the property division as Ayala Land. When his sons—Jaime Augusto and Fernando—became co-vice chairmen in the mid-1990s, the conglomerate was ready to embark on expansion. The brothers pushed into new businesses with Jaime Augusto taking over as group chairman after the patriarch retired in 2006. More From Forbes Asia Forbes Forbes Philippines' 50 Richest 2024 List - Philippines' Billionaires Ranked Forbes Ayala Land Buys Philippine Hotel From Cash-Strapped New World By Ian Sayson Forbes Philippines' Ayala Land To Spend $500 Million To Expand Hotel Footprint Amid Tourism Boom By Ian Sayson Forbes ME $108M Deal: Ayala Land Snaps Up Former Media Giant's Property