By Neil
Jerome C. Morales (The Philippine Star) | Updated August 19, 2013 - 12:00am
MANILA,
Philippines - The Villar family is beefing up the capitalization of its retail
company and private holding firm as it pursues expansion projects.
Paolo A.
Villar Inc. (PAVI) and Finds Convenience Stores Inc. are set to be
beneficiaries of fresh capital infusion, officials said.
“Right now,
the capital of PAVI is P1 billion but (CEO Manuel Paolo Villar) is increasing
it to P3 billion to P5 billion next year. This is to fund his planned
investments,” said former Senate president Manuel B. Villar.
The
capitalization can be further increased in the next few years depending on
expansion opportunities. To date, PAVI is into water distribution through Prime
Asset Ventures Inc. and retail electricity supply through Primewater
Infrastructure Corp. Both companies are focused on serving the needs of its
community projects.
“On the
infrastructure side, we still continue to be very interested in this. We will
participate (in biddings) when the terms are good,” said PAVI CEO Villar.
For instance,
the group is interested to join the auction for the 27.5-kilometer
Cavite-Laguna Expressway through a partnership.
On mining,
the Villar family’s Queensberry Mining & Development Corp. has invested
more than P3 billion to secure a significant minority stake in the Kingking
gold-copper project in Compostela Valley.
The mine,
considered one of the largest undeveloped copper-gold deposits in the world,
covers 1,656 hectares. Listed among the top priority projects by the Mines and
Geosciences Bureau, the mine has estimated gold deposits of 10.3 million ounces
and copper deposits of 5.4 billion pounds.
“There’s a
lot of commercial potential there,” the younger Villar said.
“We’re
obviously very bullish about the Philippines in general. The opportunities are
out there and I think we can do a lot to develop the country at the same time,”
he added.
For the
retail business, Finds will be rebranded into All Day convenience stores.
“We will
definitely end the year with 100 stores, mostly in Luzon but we want to go
nationwide,” the former senator said.
So far, the
Villar family has around 60 convenience stores. The capitalization of Finds
will be doubled to P1 billion from P500 million to support the expansion.
Listed units
Starmalls Inc. and Vista Land & Lifescapes Inc. will also increase their
recurring income portfolio.
“We’ll be
increasing our leasable space continuously every year both for Starmalls and
Vista Land,” former Senate president Villar said.
Last year,
Starmalls announced it is spending P15 billion to expand malls nationwide in
the next five years, particularly in the Visayas and Mindanao. Starmalls,
formerly Polar Property Holdings Corp., has seven commercial centers and is
putting up five more.
Starmalls
will also be riding the increasing demand for business process outsourcing
office space.
Manuela
opened its first shopping mall in Las Piñas City in 1979 and three other malls
between 1982 and 1996: Starmall Las Piñas Annex, Starmall EDSA in Mandaluyong
and Starmall Alabang in Muntinlupa.
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