BusinessWorld

Business Day

Raúl Locsin, then a reporter for the business section of the now-defunct The Manila Chronicle, took out a ₱5,000 loan to start Business Day, the paper's forerunner.

Business Day released its debut issue on February 27, 1967. It was the first business daily in Southeast Asia, and it was dedicated to “competent and responsible reporting of the news.”

On March 1, 1971, Business Day published a record of the previous year’s highest-grossing Philippine firms. Eight years later, the Securities and Exchange Commission and Business Day launched 1000 Top Corporations in the Philippines gazette. This effort laid the foundation for what is now known as BusinessWorld Top 1000 Corporations in the Philippines, an annual magazine that provides readers with corporate financial data.

Business Day survived the martial law period, partly due to President Ferdinand Marcos allowing the paper to run because it did not cover politics, a move calculated to give a veneer of press freedom to his authoritarian regime.

After the 1986 People Power Revolution, the paper eventually closed on June 5, 1987, due to a labour strike. Employees who did not join the strike quickly regrouped with Locsin to set up the current BusinessWorld Publishing Corporation.

BusinessWorld

The first copy of BusinessWorld was sold on July 27, 1987. In the same year, BusinessWorld became the first among local dailies to use desktop publishing, and in 1991 it incorporated World Press, Inc., a fully owned printing subsidiary of the firm located in Antipolo, Rizal.

World Press, which started with a five-unit web offset printing press, already had nine units by 1995. In two years, it was able to own pre-press facilities that allowed for the Color Electronic Pagination System, which made BusinessWorld the country’s first newspaper printed in full color.

Previously housed in Ortigas Center, Pasig City, BusinessWorld moved to its current location in New Manila, Quezon City in 1994. The building was designed by Locsin’s cousin, the late National Artist for Architecture Leandro V. Locsin, who also worked on the Philippine Stock Exchange Plaza in Makati City.

When Locsin died in May 2003 after a long-term illness, his wife, executive editor and chief operating officer Leticia Locsin, took over as the paper's president, publisher, and chairperson until her death in August 2005. Their daughter, Barbara Locsin, headed the paper for a while, later succeeded by Anthony Cuaycong as chief operating officer.

MVP Group acquisition

In 2004, the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT), led by businessman Manuel V. Pangilinan, acquired a minority stake in BusinessWorld through PLDT's Beneficial Trust Fund unit, MediaQuest Holdings, Inc. In September 2013, MediaQuest assumed control of the paper, with its subsidiary Hastings Holdings Inc. increasing its stake from 30% to 76.67% and infusing ₱100 million into the company over the next 12 months. Smart Communications, Inc. co-founder and chief wireless advisor Orlando Vea was named acting president. In March 2014, José Roberto "Roby" A. Alampay, head of Philippine news portal and PLDT subsidiary InterAksyon.com and a News5 anchor, was appointed concurrent Editor-in-Chief of the newspaper.

In July 2015, The Philippine Star acquired the entire 76.63% stake of its sister broadsheet BusinessWorld from Hastings Holdings Inc., the subsidiary of The Star's parent, MediaQuest. This transaction is done to enhance to role of The Philippine Star as the leading and trusted news source in the Philippines and to allow BusinessWorld to be strengthened. The Philippine Star president Miguel G. Belmonte was named concurrent president of the broadsheet.