Steven Tan (left), Hans T. Sy (3rd from right) and Annie Garcia (right) present the SM Top Partners Awards. 

SM Malls celebrated its 30th anniversary by holding its very first Partners Summit at the SMX Convention Center.
 

William Tan Untiong, Carol Sy, Sandy Prieto-Romualdez, Hans T. Sy

 
The two-day event, dubbed “Bricks Click, Creating the New Marketplace,” featured a Retail Forum on the first day, and a gala night on the second, in which the mall awarded its top retail partners.
 
Fifty-four companies were named Top Partners, with some cited for Most Innovative Store Design, Best in Green Retail, Best in Marketing, and Most Popular Brand.
 
Awards were received by Jon-Jon San Agustin of Octagon (IT); Thess Manganti of Let’s Face It (Wellness); Xandra Ramos and Precy Ramos of National Book Store (Specialty); Virgilio Lim of Bench (Fashion); and William Tan Untiong of Jollibee (Food).
 
“Much has happened since we opened our first mall 30 years ago,” said SM Prime Holdings president Hans T. Sy in his speech at the Retail Forum. “The retail landscape has become more global and competitive, technology has forever changed the way we live and do things, and customer tastes have changed along with the times.”
 
Sy, who’s an engineer, went on to cite the qualities which brick-and-mortar companies like shopping malls share.
 
He explained how companies and relationships are built one brick at a time and by working closely together. Similarly, SM and its partners had worked together to change Filipino lifestyle and “become part of the lives of millions of Filipinos.”
 
SM’s first shopping mall was SM City North Edsa. SM founder Henry Sy had taken note of the shopping center development in the United States during his business trips abroad in the 1950s and ’60s.
 
“SM looks forward to the next 30 years,” said Hans Sy. “All in all, we plan to develop four to five new malls in the Philippines each year. Our long-term goal is to have 100 malls around the country.”