MANILA - It took Ramon Ang just 7 years to mould San Miguel Corp., the venerable brewer that is the Philippines' most famous brand, into his own dynamic image.

A licensed jet pilot with a passion for fast horses and expensive cars, the energetic 54-year-old president and chief executive has shaken up the country's corporate world with a stunning, multi-billion-dollar acquisition binge.

With the country's top oil refiner, two huge power plants, a telecommunications firm, a grains port, and a toll road project in the bag, San Miguel has gone well beyond its core businesses of brewing, food processing and packaging.

"The growth of all these (new) businesses is very strong and gives an... at least 20% return on equity," Ang told Agence France-Presse in an interview this week.

He said San Miguel intended to keep the Southeast Asian beer business, in which its iconic Pale Pilsen enjoys a 95%-plus lock on the domestic market, as well as food processing and packaging.

He described them as "very stable", if slower-growing profit-makers.

But going forward, Ang said the 119-year-old company was set for more market-moving moves.

He said he wanted to invest in more road projects, airports and water utilities at home, while making large oil, coal, natural gas and mining acquisitions abroad.

But some analysts question Ang's spending.

Jose Vistan of AB Capital Securities told Agence France-Presse he was concerned the firm "may be buying into sectors that are not yet their forte. Only time will tell if they made the right decision.

"They have already decided that food is a mature industry and they should venture into other fields. But it is a bold move," he said.

However, Ang dismisses such skepticism, saying: "These are businesses that are very hard to replicate."

He cited investments in Petron Corp., which has a nationwide chain of 1,300 service stations, as well as the Sual and Limay power plants, which have a combined capacity of 1,620-megawatts.

"Sometimes it takes years for any company to be able to acquire that much capacity."

Ang also defended a tie-up with Qatar Telecom for a sortie into a telecoms business dominated by Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co., saying it was not as risky as conventional thinking suggested.

"(Critics) now realize that technology keeps on changing and a new player can immediately make its mark," he said.

Ang, of Chinese-Filipino entrepreneurial stock, earned a mechanical engineering degree at a Manila university and ran his own businesses before going to work for companies belonging to San Miguel chairman Eduardo Cojuangco in the 1990s.

A sharp dresser, Ang enjoyed a meteoric rise to the top and appears to have a love of bucking tradition.

He sometimes announces corporate moves in SMS messages to Filipino journalists, a tack that usually triggers a Philippine Stock Exchange letter demanding clarification.

Cojuangco, who Forbes magazine said has a net worth of $660 million, took control of the San Miguel board in 1998 following a falling-out between the Spanish-Filipino families that had controlled the company for generations.

By 2002 Ang had become vice chairman, president and CEO of the parent firm as Cojuangco, now aged 74, yielded the day-to-day running of the company to his protege.

Ang likened San Miguel's diversification to the massive rebuilding effort of countries that suffered major infrastructure damage from World War II.

"What we are doing is basic. It's like replicating what they did. Once they are built they will not ever go to waste."