By Richmond S. Mercurio (The
Philippine Star) | Updated September 18, 2014 - 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines - Vista Land &
Lifescapes Inc., the country’s largest homebuilder expects profits to reach a new high again this year
as housing demand in the Philippines continues to be robust.
The listed property holding firm of
real estate tycoon Manuel B. Villar Jr. sees income to hit a record P5.67
billion for the entire year, Vista Land officials told The STAR.
Vista Land investor relations officer
Brian Edang said the company is eyeing a 12 percent year-on-year growth in
profit this year after its net income rose 15 percent to a record P5.06 billion
in 2013.
Villar, in a separate interview, said
the firm is on track to meet its double-digit profit growth target for the
year.
The company is also set to hike its
capital expenditure next year to launch more projects.
“We still don’t have the final figure yet for
our capex but let us just say that it would be significantly be bigger than
this year’s capex,” Edang said.
The property company has earmarked a
budget of P21.6 billion this year, up 22 percent from P17.2 billion in 2013. As
of the first six months of 2014, the company has already spent P10.4 billion in
capital expenditures so far or about 48 percent of its budget.
Vista Land’s net income climbed 12
percent to P2.8 billion in the first half from P2.5 billion a year ago.
Villar said the residential housing
business continues to be strong despite a lot of developments from various
companies across the country. He said many Filipinos still do not have their
own homes at present.
“The end user will not become saturated
because our backlog is 3.6 million housing units. We’re a poor country, so the
more people improve their economic status and as the middle class grows, the
demand grows (for houses),” Villar said.
“Our case is not like that of the
developed countries where most of their people have their own homes. Here,
there are still plenty who do not have. If you look at developed countries now,
you will see that we are still far behind.
While some look at it as we have gone far from where we are before, I
would like to look at it as we are still far from where we want to go,” he
added.
Vista Land already has residential
housing developments in 34 provinces and 74 cities and municipalities around
the country. The property firm has completed more than 250,000 housing units
over the past 38 years.
Last year, the company launched 35
projects with an estimated value of P26.1 billion, 31 of which are in the low
and affordable segment.
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