Vista Land income declines by 45% as pandemic bites

Vista Land and Lifescapes inc., the listed property development company of the Villar Group, on Thursday said its income last year fell 45 percent to P6.4 billion, from the previous year’s P11.6 billion as the pandemic took its toll on most of its businesses.

Consolidated total revenues declined 26 percent to P32.7 billion from the previous P42.89 billion, but said its commercial business with rental revenues dropped only by 7 percent as it was able to quickly launch projects when presented

with opportunities due to its landbank and presence across the country.

“The past year truly challenged our ability to move forward despite the presence of a global health crisis. However, it even proved to be one of our most innovative years yet as we accelerated our digital transformation to reach and to better serve our clients,” Manuel B. Villar Jr., the company’s chairman, said.

“We are glad to have witnessed the sustained uptrend of our reservation sales registering 37 percent growth since the second quarter of last year and are looking at 2021 with optimism following the resilient overseas Filipino remittances in 2020 and its projected growth of up to 4 percent this year. Our leasing business, notwithstanding the series of lockdowns, was able to ramp up to 95 percent operational gross floor area since the majority of our tenants are categorized as essential.”

The company’s total consolidated assets as of December 2020 stood at P284.1 billion. Its capital expenditures for the year amounted to P24.6 billion.

Manuel Paolo A. Villar, the company’s president and CEO, said Vista Land will continue to capitalize on its geographic reach given the demand for affordable housing located outside of Metro Manila.

“We are also looking at increased foot traffic with the start of the vaccination rollout this year. Right now, our leasing business enjoys foot fall of 45 to 55 percent of pre-covid,” he added.

Last year, he said, the company as able to maximize the use of its existing raw land and that it was able to launch residential projects worth P5 billion in the last quarter alone to end the year with a total launch value of P10 billion.

“We also added over 90,000 square meters of GFA [gross floor area] for our leasing business, mostly commercial centers as we took advantage of the captive demand of our residents.”