It’s a Saturday morning. The AGI offices in the 30-storey Alliance Global Tower in Uptown Bonifacio, Taguig City are quiet, save for the quiet hum of activity from the CEO’s few staff and Tatler’s editorial team. The boss is in the building, however, primed and prepped for this cover story. He is upbeat and bears a hint of gratitude for this opportunity to share the many successes his company has scored in less than a decade. He is also eager to talk about visions and executions that now have clarity and relevance of purpose. 

Because of its phenomenal growth in real-estate, Megaworld has attracted small and large investors via MREIT designated by the company to lease a portfolio of office and commercial assets. “The REIT law was something we have been studying for years, and during the pandemic, we saw an opportunity to be active in it,” says Tan, before confidently announcing, “Our plan is, before 2030, to hit 2 million sqm of office space from 1.7m sqm today. Also, a million sqm of mall space from the current 500,000 sqm.”

Since he entered the real-estate development business, Tan has promoted the work-live-play-learn concept in his contained townships. A recent project is in Mactan, Cebu where he has tweaked the concept to set up a “workcation” township. “It was a resort-themed island,” Tan explains. “Most businesses came from resorts, except a small industrial park. However, we decided to introduce a business district as well. People were calling us crazy then, since business is very centred in Cebu City. But we decided to take a risk. We wanted to introduce a new lifestyle where you mix work-life-balance with the workcation concept.” 

Naysayers notwithstanding, the concept worked. There are now eight office buildings, nine residential towers and two hotels with 1,000 rooms in the area. “Who wouldn’t want to work there? I think it is the only place in the country where you see a business district attached to a beachfront.”  

Of all the developments he has undertaken so far, Tan’s pet project is the development of Newport World Resorts (NWR). Located across Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 3, NWR features seven hotel brands: Marriott Hotel Manila, Holiday Inn Express, Belmont Hotel Manila, Savoy Hotel Manila, Hilton Hotel Manila, Sheraton Manila Hotel and Hotel Okura Manila. It offers a wide range of meetings, incentives, conferences, and exhibitions (MICE) venues, including a three-storey convention centre that houses the Marriott Grand Ballroom, the country’s largest hotel ballroom. It is home to world-class casino areas, bars and lounges, 50 restaurants, the House Manila, Kao Day and Night Club, the Newport Mall with its state-of-the-art Newport Cinemas, and the award-winning, ultra-modern Newport Performing Arts Theater (NPAT). 

“We’re doubling our investments in the tourism sector,” Tan tells us, adding that  apart from rebuilding Maxims Hotel as the Newport Mansions, with 15 villas and more than 100 suites, there’s also the upcoming renovation of the Marriott Hotel Manila.

After buying out its partners in the erstwhile Resorts World, AGI now owns NWR 100 per cent. “We’ve had that business for 15 years, but I was never fully involved. I stayed, I guess, at the investors’ level,” Tan says. He was officially appointed chairman last year, even though he says he had been involved “behind the scenes” for about a year before. “This is now the exciting part of my journey.” 

The first step was to assemble a management team to work with the existing one. “This has been keeping me busy for maybe one and a half years. We have so many plans for that area,” he says.

Apart from rebuilding Maxims into Newport Mansions and renovating Marriott, AGI will  also launch the expansive 800-sqm presidential suite of Hotel Okura,  which Tan thinks “will be one of the largest in any hotel in the country”. Sheraton will likewise launch its presidential suite plus two loft suites. “The last three years were marked by the opening of hotel after hotel─Sheraton, Hilton, Okura all in succession. This year, the bigger suites will be introduced. You will see products that are not too common in the market. These products will be the gold standard of hotel rooms, the most upscale in the industry,” Tan says excitedly.

Also in the pipeline is the largest locally branded hotel property in the Philippines, The Grand Westside Hotel. With 1,530 rooms, it is due to be launched in the first quarter of 2025 in the Manila Bay area near Megaworld’s Westside City township—the potential location, too, of the Ritz, originally in Newport.

A 24-hour day is not enough for this father of two who espouses work-life balance. But he’s been making it work so far. “Weekends, both Saturday and Sunday, are spent with my two children,” Tan says. There isn’t always time to spend with them during the week: mornings are spent attending to real-estate matters; evenings are for casino hotel visits. 

Despite having only limited time with the kids, Tan knows them very well, his pride almost palpable as he tells Tatler about them. Katy, nine, likes maths. “She’s intelligent, very confident, very outspoken. She always has a remark for everything.” Drew is six, artistic and an excellent conversationalist. “He’s very charming and likes to talk to girls.” Tan is especially eager to get as much time with his children as they grow older.  “The conversations are different,” he says. “We do movie nights, game nights. It’s nice that you can talk and converse with them now.”

When Tan is at work, his wife wields her hands-on mum magic. “Michelle is a beautiful mother,” Tan says. “She takes our kids to school and picks them up. In between, she says all she can think of is what they will eat for merienda [snacks].” 

Tan is also grateful for the change that fatherhood has effected in him. “My perspective has become more far-reaching,” he says. “When you’re single, you just work, work, work, spending evenings in many different ways. When you’re married with children, you look forward to going home for a different reason. You also tend to think more long-term. I think this is the right evolution for man.” 

Tan feels his future is crystal clear. What was once a one-layered picture is enhanced into multiple layers, all sharply focused on a deeper purpose. “When my father started, we were simply building homes. Today, we are building entire cities and communities. But also, we’re promoting new industries and igniting existing ones,” the CEO says. “I think this is the longer-term perspective, as a company. How do you create jobs? How do you promote new industries, create innovation, improve lives?” 

This constant querying informs many of the company’s decisions, and Tan says they are bringing their developments outside Metro Manila. “Our idea is to develop outside the metro because we believe that when we introduce our township concept, especially in areas not urbanised yet, we will create a lot of employment for the local population. We will be generating jobs, helping boost tourism, and helping create SMSEs. Even the surrounding communities tend to benefit.” 

This chain reaction, Tan believes, is their “way of also helping in nation-building”. He mentions two areas where AGI would like to leave a long-lasting legacy. The first is in tourism development, and the second is helping develop the theatre industry.

“This [latter] is my father’s vision,” Tan says. “What we’re doing now is turning Filipino music into musicals like Parokya ni Edgar’s Buruguduystunstugudunstuy,” he says, referring to the 1997 album which inspired a musical that opened this year. “[Another] hit last year was Huling El Bimbo, which had 170-plus shows. So, we found a format which the team has been able to develop: turning Filipino music, which is very rich, into plays.” 

For these projects, Tan engaged the Traveller’s Group, which manages the Newport Performing Arts Theater and a theatre group, alongside Menchu Lauchengco and Michael Williams as critical producers. “We’re working on a few more productions,” Tan says. “I believe this is a way to develop Filipino talent and bring it to the global stage. As a company, we also recognise that Filipino talent is strong but not promoted enough. We not only want to develop new talents but also want new industries to showcase these talents.” 

These days, Andrew has been delegating more and more of the company’s operations  to his son. He keeps an office in the Alliance Global Tower and visits it several days a week. But Tan and his wife Katherine have been enjoying the pleasures of travel after a life of hard work building a business empire, confident their hard work is in good hands.

Andrew was not raised in luxury, not even in comfort. Although he knows his children (Kevin, Kendrick, Kester, Kara) had a comfortable upbringing, he remains confident that all of them, and especially Kevin, will pave their way and carve their name on the foundation he’s built. In our 2015 interview, he said, “Although born in fortunate circumstances, my children have shown they’re as hungry for success as other people their age and ready to face life’s toughest challenges head-on.”

Tan has achieved great success, particularly in the real estate industry, demonstrating his ability to confidently lead the company and pursue the vision he shares with his father. As the company grows, both father and son are focused on a greater goal: the country’s future. With this, Tan is inspired and impassioned to face what’s ahead with a more progressive perspective. He says, “Every time we build a township or a development, it’s an opportunity to create something new for the Filipinos. At the end of the day, our group’s goal is to elevate the Filipino lifestyle.”

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