Ever Gotesco Malls

Ever Gotesco Malls Group of Companies launched in 1972[1] when Jose Go, aged 24, opened the five-story Ever Emporium on C.M. Recto Ave. in Downtown Manila.

During the martial law, Go took advantage of the low-priced merchandise and was one of the pioneers of one-stop shopping. His store sold low-priced goods to thousands of low-income students who survived on small allowances. The huge volumes sold made up for the goods' thin margins.

By 1975, Go had made Ever Emporium a popular retail name. From Recto, he expanded to Caloocan City, where he built the $6-million, 40,000-square meter Ever Gotesco mall that lured the low- to middle-income residents of the populous city to shop in droves.

With two major shopping malls in the capital and two more elsewhere, Go formed Ever Gotesco Resources and Holdings (EGRH) in 1996. An initial public offering (IPO) that year gave him enough ammunition to expand into uncharted territory.

EGRH acquired a struggling, publicly listed mining company called Suricon that was later renamed Gotesco Land. He also invested in a housing project in Bulacan, North Caloocan, and a hot springs resort in Laguna. He bought a small bank (that later became his biggest headache), a golf course in Tagaytay, and purchase 20 percent worth of stocks in a paging company.

His goal then was ambitious: to build a $2-billion retail-and-property conglomerate that churns out $350 million a year. Unfortunately, the 1997 Asian financial crisis caught him aggressively expanding into other businesses using borrowed dollars. The crisis doubled his debts and forced him to tap into the deposits of his wholly owned Orient Commercial Banking Corp.

The bank went down in history as the first victim of the Asian economic crisis when it closed on Valentine's Day, 1998. Until now, Go is still fighting the foreclosure of his assets by the central bank, which lent over P8 billion to Orient Bank. He is also facing multi-billion peso lawsuits and all his properties have been garnished by the courts. Some of his former properties either ended up being closed, acquired by competitors or shut down entirely.

On March 17, 2012, Ever Gotesco Grand Central Mall in Caloocan burned down in a devastating fire which raged for more than 20 hours. The mall closed down after fire brought under control, and was subsequently demolished and its property title foreclosed and sold.

A segment of the southbound lane of Rizal Avenue in Caloocan. The site of the Ever Gotesco Grand Central Mall can be seen beyond the LRT-1 median of the said segment.

Ever Gotesco currently survives through its community supermarket chains in Metro Manila, aside from its remaining malls.

• Ever Gotesco Malls. Official Facebook Page
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