This year’s annual Best Under A Billion list highlights the resilience of 200 publicly listed small and midsized companies in the Asia-Pacific region with sales under $1 billion.

After taking a hit last year, fortunes in the Philippines staged a robust recovery: collective wealth of the 50 richest was up 30% to $79 billion. Despite pandemic headwinds, four listees added over $1 billion as the country’s economy notched up double-digit growth in this year’s second quarter.

The $1 billion IPO in June of instant noodle maker Monde Nissin—the country’s biggest listing to date—gave a major boost to the wealth of its controlling shareholders and added Hartono Kweefanus, Henry Soesanto, brothers Keng Sun and Peter Mar to the ranks.

After years in the doldrums, the Philippines’ stock market has become one of Southeast Asia’s hottest markets for IPOs in the past 12 months. Instant noodle giant Monde Nissin and four other firms and REITs have gone public since August last year, raising over $2 billion.

Dennis Anthony Uy and his wife Maria Grace, cofounders of Converge ICT Solutions, join the list for the first time with a net worth of $2.8 billion. Their wealth derives primarily from their stake in the fast-growing broadband services provider, which went public last October.

The Philippines pulled out of a year-long recession in the second quarter with headline-grabbing 11.8% GDP growth—the fastest year-on-year quarterly expansion in over three decades. However, rising Covid-19 cases and repeated lockdowns have put the economic recovery at risk.

Filinvest Development CEO Josephine Gotianun-Yap is plowing ahead with growing her family’s diversified company despite a drag from the pandemic.

CEO Yasuo Takeuchi, 64, is leading a major transformation of Olympus into a medical technology company, after selling off its lauded, but money-losing, camera business.

The September issue of Forbes Asia magazine features the annual Best Under A Billion list, Philippines’ 50 Richest ranking and the cover story on Yasuo Takeuchi, CEO of Japan’s Olympus. The coverage illustrates how some Asian companies are transforming themselves under entrepreneurial leadership.

Mainland China is behind other countries when it comes to making advanced microprocessors. Beijing has to overcome that hurdle if it wants to move toward core technological independence by 2025.