Strike Gold with Puregold

Lucio and Susan Co, a husband-and-wife team, have struck gold with their Puregold Price Club, a chain of over 150 hypermarkets, supermarkets and discount stores. Starting with one store in 1998, the Cos have expanded at a rapid pace, lately through acquisitions, to build Puregold into the country’s second-largest retailer, after Henry Sy’s SM group.

Contrary to what its name suggests, a typical Puregold outlet stocks not fancy goods but a range of cheap merchandise aimed at a rising population of middle-class shoppers and owners of neighborhood convenience stores, known as sari-sari stores. (It claims to have over 230,000 of them as its customers.) Since 2010 the retailer’s revenues have doubled to $1.3 billion with net profits increasing fivefold to $65 million.

Lucio’s retailing background is linked to running duty-free airport shops, including at Clark International Airport, a former American air force base northwest of Manila. With Puregold the Cos have earned both respectability and fabulous riches. Since 2011, when they took the company public, its shares have soared threefold. “Puregold is the country’s only pure play retail company, and it’s on an aggressive growth trajectory. Investors like that,” says Lauro Baja, country head of UBS Philippines, which was a lead manager in its IPO.

Puregold’s meteoric rise is linked to a domestic consumption boom that has been the mainstay of the Philippines’ growth story. If consumer confidence remains upbeat, the retail market is expected to grow to $75 billion by 2017.

Other tycoons are lining up to cash in on the middle-class shopping spree. Recently, Ayala Land, Jaime Zobel de Ayala’s (No. 6) property unit, announced it was partnering with Puregold in a new joint venture to operate “midmarket” supermarkets. The Ayala firm last year teamed up with Bienvenido Tantoco Sr. (No. 40) to bring Japanese convenience store chain FamilyMart to the Philippines. John Gokongwei Jr. (No. 5) is preparing to list his Robinsons Retail Holdings, a franchisee of Toys “R” Us, among much else. The IPO is expected to be the country’s largest ever.