This week, we're replaying some of our favorite Forbes stories from 2024.

Today on Forbes, this billionaire beer baron wants to rebuild the Philippines.

The opening photo on the website of San Miguel, best known for its eponymous 134-year-old beer brand,

isn't that of its brewery, but of a 39-kilometer elevated expressway connecting Metro Manila with nearby provinces to its north and south.

That pictorily depicts the biggest stakes for the storied conglomerate today.

Under Chairman Ramon Ang, the company has repositioned itself as a

nation builder with an ambitious push into infrastructure, winning bids for airports, toll roads,

and power plants at nothing short of a frenetic pace. In March, it won a 171 billion peso, about $2.9 billion,

contract to upgrade and operate Manila's aging Ninoi-Aquino-Ikino-International Airport, the country's main gateway, even while it's halfway

through constructing the new 735 billion-pezo Bulacan airport, roughly 40 kilometers north of the

capital city. The same month, San Miguel Global Power Holdings announced a three-way partnership with the

Abouetti's families, Abouetti's Power, and Maralco PowerGen, backed by Metro Pacific

Investments, which is jointly owned by Indonesian billionaire Anthony Selim's First Pacific

and Filipino businessman

Manuel Pangilinian.

The three-way partnership's purpose is to develop a $3.3 billion-

integrated liquefied natural gas facility in Batangas province, south of Manila.

This buzzing pipeline of infrastructure projects has made San Miguel the most indebted company in the Philippines today,

with a staggering debt load of $1.5 trillion,

equivalent to about $26 billion as of 2023.

The company's debt-to-equity ratio of 2.2 is more than twice the gearing of the country's

biggest conglomerates, such as Ayala Corp and SM investments, according to Bloomberg

...