Filipino billionaire Manuel Villar's Vista Land profit falls 59% to $60 million

Filipino billionaire Manuel Villar's Vista Land & Lifescapes Inc. said its net income fell 59% in 2025 as interest costs climbed, in results released more than six months after the Philippine Stock Exchange deadline for annual reports.

The Manila-based homebuilder said profit for the year to Dec. 31 dropped to P3.8 billion ($60 million) from P9.37 billion ($147 million) in 2024. Consolidated revenue was P35.8 billion ($563 million), and gross profit from its housing business fell 18% to P9.7 billion ($152 million).

The company said the results reflect, in part, the recognition of interest expenses that were not capitalized into qualifying assets. Developers usually add borrowing costs to the value of projects under construction rather than charging them against earnings.

The full-year figure is about P5.7 billion less than the P9.46 billion ($149 million) profit Vista Land reported for the first nine months of 2025. In those nine months, the company said, interest and financing charges had already risen 17%.

Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization rose 6% to P24.2 billion ($380 million), in line with the company's target for the year. Vista Land launched 46 housing developments worth P49.6 billion ($780 million) during 2025, most of them under its Camella brand of low-rise homes. Total assets stood at P376.8 billion ($5.9 billion) at the end of the year.

Shares frozen

The numbers came in a press release filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, not in the full audited accounts, and they do not clear the stock to trade again. The audit of Vista Land's 2025 statements has dragged on for months, delaying its first-half 2026 report.

The Philippine Stock Exchange suspended trading in Vista Land and other Villar-controlled companies in June after they missed filing deadlines. Six of the tycoon's seven listed companies, which span property and retail, are suspended, freezing shares with a last-traded value of about P320 billion ($5 billion). Philippine state pension funds are among the investors whose holdings are locked up.

Vista Land also faces a heavy debt calendar. It has a $420 million bond due in July 2027 and a $450 million bond due in July 2029, and it is reviewing sales of non-core assets, including two shopping malls, that could raise as much as P15 billion ($236 million).

Villar's fortune shrinks

Villar, 76, a former president of the Philippine Senate, built his fortune from a housing business he started in the 1970s. His family's holdings include Vista Land, the property trust VistaREIT, the retailers AllHome and AllDay, and Villar Land Holdings, the flagship formerly called Golden MV Holdings.

Villar Land drew scrutiny in 2025 after it booked a profit of almost P1 trillion on a revaluation of land at Villar City, a 3,500-hectare estate south of Manila. Its auditor refused to sign off on the valuation, and the company later accepted a figure that was a small fraction of the original appraisal. In February, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed a criminal complaint against Villar, Villar Land and its directors, alleging market manipulation and insider trading. Villar denied the allegations. "I have never engaged in illegal practices designed to defraud customers and investors," he said at the time.

The frozen shares and the land write-down have shrunk Villar's fortune to about $2.3 billion, down from an estimated $10.9 billion in August 2025.