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Filipino business tycoons Manuel Villar and Enrique Razon are entering the new decade as the only Philippine billionaires to make it on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, which lists the 500 wealthiest people in the world.

The index is a daily ranking of the world’s richest, and the figures and rankings are updated at the end of every business day after the trading floor closes in New York.

With the release of the latest Forbes list of the wealthiest people in the Philippines, Manuel "Manny" Villar, Jr. now finds himself rising to the #2 spot—after tripling his net worth to US$5 billion, from $1.65 billion in 2017.

Entrepreneur, real estate tycoon, congressman, Speaker of the House of Representatives, senator, presidential candidate: Manuel Villar, Jr. has led a rich life—in more ways than one. We look back at this interview Villar did with Esquire Philippines in May 2015.

In the fifth year of his second wind as a developer, Villar ventures into retail with CoHo Lifestyle and is building ‘the most beautiful’ coffee shops, cinemas and supermarkets.

At first, he just wanted a coffee shop where he could hold meetings with his company’s executives, but he found these places too plain and cookie cutter. So, developer and former Senator Manny B. Villar set out to build “the most beautiful coffee shop in the country” and the Coffee Project was born.