Vista Land & Lifescapes Inc., an integrated property company owned by the Villar family, remains bullish on its leasing business despite the crackdown on the Philippine offshore gaming operators.
Vista Land president and chief executive Manuel Paolo Villar said in a statement the group’s leasing portfolio was comprised mainly of retail malls and commercial centers and had very limited exposure to POGOs.
“Our leasable spaces are mostly retail malls which limit our POGO exposure and any crackdown to those POGOs will not impact on our overall financial performance,” Villar said.
He said while the group also had several office developments, these projects catered mostly to the business process outsourcing firms.
Vista Land had 1.4 million square meters of leasable space as of end June, of which 1.178 million sqm were retail space and only 226,227 sqm were office space.
State-owned the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. said Monday it would suspend the acceptance of applications for offshore gaming licenses pending a review of the operations of POGOs.
PAGCOR made the decision after some sectors expressed concern over the proliferation of POGO operations in the country.
Vista Land registered an 11-percent growth in net income in the first half to P5.8 billion from P5.2 billion in the same period last year.
Consolidated revenues increased by 11 percent to P23.4 billion from P21.1 billion a year ago. Leasing revenues went up 17 percent to P3.9 billion from P3.3 billion, driven by the increase in our leasable spaces from malls.
Villar said the company was focused on ramping up residential launches as demand remained strong from local and overseas Filipino workers.
Vista Land aimed to launch at least P50 billion worth of residential projects this year.
“We target to launch at least P50-billion projects in terms of project value for 2019, which will still be mostly in the low and affordable segment and outside Metro Manila,” Villar said.
The property firm already launched P16 billion worth of projects as of end-June.
Vista Land intends to focus on the development of integrated urban developments combining lifestyle retail, prime office space, university town, healthcare, themed residential developments and leisure components.
