Villar expanding retail business

MANILA, Philippines - Tycoon Manuel Villar Jr. is expanding his retail business this year with more malls and new concepts, bullish on the steady growth of the retail industry, strong consumer spending and rising per capita income.

All Value Holdings Corp., the retail arm of the Villar Group, will open more branches of its existing brands and will introduce new retail concepts, Villar said on Friday.

The growth of the retail business will go hand in hand with the opening of more malls by Vista Land & Lifescapes’as well as stand-alone outlets particularly for AllDay Convenience Stores and The Coffee Project.

“Prospects for retail businesses are very good because I am very bullish about the Duterte administration,” Villar said.

He said with the group’s different retail concepts, it is able to create the ideal landscape of Vista Land’s malls.

Filipino consumers are getting more discriminatory in taste because of rising per capita income, which makes it necessary to have more upscale retail concepts.

“I’m looking at a significant improvement in the lifestyle of Filipinos,” Villar said.

All Value’s retail portfolio includes the AllHome one-stop-shop home improvement depot; the supermarket under AllDay Supermarket; convenience stores under the AllDay Convenience Store brand; AllToys toy stores, AllShoppe department stores; The Coffee Project coffee shops and the latest one, Bake my Day bakeshop.

These retail concepts are usually near the Villar Group’s residential communities as they serve the needs of the residents.

“Our buyers have needs. Theyneed commercial centers, coffee shops, etc. It’s just a matter of filling the blanks,” he said.

In the next three to five years, the target is to put up malls filled with All Value retail concepts in all 200 cities and municipalities where there will be Vista Land residential projects.

Among the different concepts, AllHome is usually the anchor tenant of Vista Malls, Villar said.

“Right now there are only 13 branches. We paused for a while but we are set to resume the opening of stores and we will ramp it to 25 by next year,” he said.

Among the newer concepts is The Coffee Project, which Villar said is doing well.

“We’re very bullish with coffee. We’re going to expand The Coffee Project. It’s a very successful venture and we want to expand very quickly,” he said.

This year, Coffee Project will have 25 branches and for next year, this will double to 50.

“We will be coming up with a very aggressive growth rate,” he said.

AllDay Supermarkets are also gaining ground and the company plans to have 10 branches by the end of the year from four at present.