Villar Group earmarks P175 B for 3-year capital expenditures

MANILA, Philippines — The Villar Group of Companies is setting aside P175 billion for capital expenditures up to 2020, its chairman said.

The conglomerate founded by tycoon Manuel Villar Jr. will use the amount to expand its real estate, retail, leasing, tourism-related segment, education and health businesses.

Of the P175 billion, about 60 percent will go to real estate development while 35 percent will go to leasing and retail, and the development of new retail concepts. 

In 2018 alone, the company will spend P50 billion for its real estate business.

Villar said the huge capital spending program reflects the company’s optimism on the country’s sound microeconomic fundamentals.

“We are very bullish in the coming year as we take advantage of the various collaborations among our companies in addition to the sustained sound Philippine macroeconomic fundamentals. Our various expansion programs implemented in our property development including memorial parks, malls and retail businesses are yielding positive results and are taking advantage of the significant synergies that we have unlocked,” Villar said.

 Vista Land & Lifescapes will continue to build malls and residential projects in the countryside as it aims to deliver double digit growth in the next three years.

Similarly, its All Value Holdings Corp. will expand its different segments of homegrown brands — home improvement through All Home, supermarket through All Day, bakeshop through Bake My Day and coffee shop through, The Coffee Project.

There are new concepts as well such as All Sports and All Toys.

The capital expenditure for each Coffee Project branch is P10 million to P15 million.

Villar wants all Vista Land developments to have a good coffee shop.

There are now 22 branches of The Coffee Project and the group plans to increase this to about 45 to 50.

“So we will add 23 to 28 more. We now have 15 to 20 identified locations, including Davao, Cagayan de Oro, Iloilo, and Naga,” Villar said.

For All Day convenience stores, Villar said they are targeting to have 100 branches by next year from 72 outlets while the All Day Supermarkets is targeted to double to 26 next year from 13.

All Home will be expanded to 26 to 28 depots by next year from 16.

Villar said the plan also includes the construction of a Bake My Day shop beside all of their supermarkets. They are also planning to open a new pharmacy concept soon.

The group will fund the capex through internally-generated cash and borrowings.

On top of these, the Villar Group is  open to listing its retail businesses, either all under All Value or individually, once the numbers have reached critical mass.

To serve the growing needs of Vista Land’s residential developments, the group is also planning to grow Georgia Academy from three schools now to 13 next year. The school accepts students up to Grade 12.

The Villar Group also plans to expand Golden Haven Memorial Park by doubling the number of locations from the current 14 to 28. “We are going big in memorial parks. We aim to have one in every city where we have Camella Homes,” he said.