Basic Information

From the dream of selling a good pair of shoes to every Filipino, SM founder Henry Sy, Sr. has
laid the groundwork and piloted the development and evolution of SM Investments Corporation
(SMIC) into one of the country’s largest holding companies in the Philippines today.

For over six decades, SM has demonstrated its leading presence in retail, banking, and property
development in the Philippines with a rising presence in China, innovating to provide best-value
in products and services across various customers.

Through careful planning and execution, SM takes inspiration from its millions of stakeholders
whose lives are shaped by their aspirations and constant desire for a better quality of life.  As it
continues to build on these aspirations, SM fulfills its catalyst role by expanding through its core
businesses, generating employment, energizing business activities and overall progress in its host
communities. SM stands firm in its commitment toward change by promoting more value and
greater convenience, stimulating growth and inspiring millions toward realizing their lifelong
dreams.

SM Investments History

In 1958, Sy’s first company, Shoemart (SM), started in Carriedo, Manila. He initially focused on
buying large supplies of shoes from the United States. His business expanded as he transformed
his shoe store into a department store.

At this point, Sy set up his second company, SM Department Store Inc., and began selling stocks
to department stores. In 1978, Sy began buying supermarkets at the northern end of EDSA in
Quezon City. By the time he built his first mall, SM City North EDSA in 1994, his companies
were listed in the Philippine Stock Exchange, SM Prime Holdings Inc.  By 2005, the SM
Investments Corporation was inaugurated.”
Basic information and company history

Sony, in full Sony Corporation, major Japanese manufacturer of consumer electronics products.

It also was involved in films, music, and financial services, among other ventures.

The company was incorporated by Ibuka Masaru and Morita Akio in 1946 as Tokyo Tsushin
Kogyo (“Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation”). Ibuka, whose Japan Precision
Instruments Company had supplied electronic devices during World War II, and Morita, an
applied sciences instructor, had met during World War II as engineers designing heat-seeking
missiles for the Imperial Japanese Army. Ibuka and Morita worked together for the next 40 years
in what has been called one of “business history’s most productive and intriguing relationships.”
Ibuka’s genius with product development and Morita’s mastery of business management and
marketing turned Sony into one of the most renowned brand names on the globe. Sony, which
became the official name for the company in January 1958, was derived from the Latin sonus
(“sound”) and was conceived to be an international and not a Japanese term.

The company’s first consumer product was an electric rice cooker. Although this product sold
poorly, Totsuko, as the firm’s name was abbreviated, did have a successful business repairing
radios and other electrical equipment. Its repair work for the Japanese radio broadcaster NHK
had to be approved by the U.S. army of occupation, which later gave the young company repair
jobs of its own.

In 1950 Totsuko introduced the first Japanese-designed tape recorder. Although this consumer
item also sold poorly, the company’s fortunes were about to take a dramatic turn. In 1952 Ibuka
visited the United States and made the initial contacts for licensing the transistor from Bell
Laboratories, then a division of Western Electric Company, the manufacturing arm of American
Telephone & Telegraph (AT&T). The next year Morita went to the United States and signed the
deal with Western Electric.

This watershed agreement led to Totsuko’s first hugely successful product line: transistor radios.
Although Texas Instruments Incorporated was first to market with its Regency transistor radio in
1955, it was Sony’s TR-63, an inexpensive shirt-pocket-sized all-transistor radio, that caught
consumers’ attention when it was released in 1957. Sony’s pocket radios were a tremendous
success and brought international recognition of the company’s brand name.

By 1960 business in the United States had prompted the creation of Sony Corporation of
America, with headquarters in New York City. When the company opened its store on Fifth
Avenue in 1962, it unfurled the first Japanese flag to be flown in the United States since the
beginning of World War II.

At the 1964 New York World’s Fair, Sony introduced the MD-5, the first all-transistor desktop
calculator. In 1968 the company shipped its first Trinitron colour television. By 1971, 40 percent
of Japanese households had colour television sets, so Sony introduced the first colour video
cassette recorder (VCR), which led to its introduction of the Betamax VCR in 1975. The
Betamax, though widely considered the best VCR technology ever developed, was more
expensive than its competitor, the VHS (Video Home System).
As more and more studios and video stores turned to VHS, Betamax lost market share, and Sony
finally introduced its own VHS in 1988.

In 1979 the Sony Walkman portable tape player hit the streets. Although Sony’s engineers were
skeptical about designing a device that could only play and not record, Morita insisted on
developing the product, saying he would resign if the Walkman was not a success. The Walkman
was an international sensation and eventually sold hundreds of millions of units. The first
compact disc (CD) player emerged in 1982 from a development agreement between Sony and
Dutch manufacturer Philips Electronics NV. Sony provided pulse-code modulation technology
and combined it with Philips’s laser system. The failure of Betamax had taught Sony a lesson;
the format standard for CDs (and later digital videodiscs [DVDs]) was agreed upon by a wide
range of companies in Japan, Europe, and North America. The next year Sony introduced the
first camcorder.

By the late 1980s, Sony executives, especially the company president and the chairman of Sony
Corporation of America, Norio Ohga, wanted to add entertainment content to Sony’s operations.
In 1988 it bought CBS Records Group from CBS Inc. (now CBS Corporation), thus acquiring
the world’s largest record company, and the next year it purchased Columbia Pictures
Entertainment, Inc. The Columbia acquisition, the largest to that time of an American company
by a Japanese firm, ignited a controversy in the United States. The controversy was fanned by
Morita’s contribution to “No to ieru Hihon” (“The Japan That Can Say No”), an essay written
with Japanese nationalist Ishihara Shintarō in 1989. They claimed that Japan no longer depended
on the United States and was a stronger, better nation than its postwar ally.

The early 1990s were difficult years for Sony. The Japanese economy entered a decadelong
recession, and both Ibuka and Morita suffered strokes (in 1992 and 1993, respectively). Morita
officially retired in 1994 and died in 1999. With its founders no longer at the controls, Sony
declared its first loss, more than $200 million, in 1993. Despite the business turmoil, Sony
continued to design and deliver new products. In 1994 its entertainment division introduced its
PlayStation video game console to the Japanese market. By 2002 the game unit was contributing
more than 10 percent of the company’s yearly revenues. Another major profit centre was Sony
Online Entertainment, particularly its Internet virtual reality game EverQuest. The company’s
entertainment group also captured the imagination of many people with its robot dog, AIBO,
introduced in 1999. In 1997 Sony introduced the VAIO line of personal computers. The VAIO
was a high-quality and expensive system that the company marketed to users interested in
developing or playing multimedia programs.
In 2005, following further disappointing annual financial reports, Howard Stringer was elevated
from chairman and chief executive officer of Sony Corporation of America to chairman and
chief executive officer of Sony Corporation. Although the appointment of a non-Japanese to
head the parent company surprised many, some two-thirds of Sony’s employees worldwide were
non-Japanese. In 2009 Stringer also became president of Sony’s electronics division.
In an effort to revive Sony, Stringer focused on streamlining operations and lowering costs. The
company continued to struggle, however, posting record losses as Sony’s key consumer
electronics sector declined. In 2012 Stinger stepped down from his various posts and was
succeeded by Hirai Kazuo, an executive in the company’s video game division. Under his
leadership, Sony concentrated on consumer electronics while undertaking numerous cost-cutting
measures, including selling various real-estate holdings. Notably, in 2013 Sony sold its U.S.
headquarters in New York City for more than $1 billion.
Basic Information and History

Leisure & Resorts World Corporation (LRWC), a listed Company at the Philippine Stock
Exchange, was originally incorporated on October 10, 1957 as Atlas Fertilizer Corporation and
engaged in fertilizer and industrial chemicals production. As part of the corporate restructuring
of the Company in 1996, the Company’s primary purpose was amended in 1999 to engage in
realty development focusing on leisure business. When the company acquired AB Leisure
Exponent, Inc. (ABLE) as its wholly owned subsidiary in October 1999, LRWC extended its
business to professional bingo gaming through Bingo Bonanza Corporation. ABLE’s bingo
parlors have become community and entertainment centers, a source of revenue for the
government, and a sponsor for fundraising activities relating to social and educational programs.

On September 20, 2005, LRWC acquired First Cagayan Leisure and Resort Corporation
(FCLRC), which has an existing license agreement with the Cagayan Economic Zone Authority
(CEZA) to develop, operate and conduct internet and gaming enterprises and facilities in the
Cagayan Special Economic Zone Freeport. FCLRC receives and processes applications for and
issues interactive gaming licenses as well as regulates and monitors all operators of internet
gaming in the Cagayan Special Economic Zone Freeport. LRWC also owns 30% of Binondo
Leisure Resort, Inc., a company engaged in hotel and recreation business. LRWC is functioning
basically as a holding company with minimal operations. The company is still focusing its
endeavor in supporting the productivity programs of its wholly owned operating subsidiary,
ABLE and its 69.68% owned subsidiary, FCLRC.