Villar Group prepares to enter supermarket industry

MANILA, Philippines - The family of real estate tycoon and former Senator Manuel B. Villar Jr. is gearing up to enter the retail business, the traditional  domain of the likes of SM, Rustan’s and Puregold.

All Value Holdings Corp., the private retail holding firm of the Villar family, is bracing itself for tight competition as it prepares to join the country’s thriving supermarket and minimart industry.

Villar said his group is braving the grocery retailing business following positive results from its first supermarket venture in the flagship Starmall in EDSA Shaw.

“Starmall Shaw is the first. We are just perfecting the model. I’m very encouraged by the results so it will now become a regular. We are entering the supermarket and minimart business,” he said.

Villar said his upcoming supermarket chain would be called All Day Supermart, while the minimarts would be known as All Day Mart.

He said the group in December last year opened three minimarts to serve as pilot stores.

“We are new in the retailing world so we want to move in very quickly,” Villar said.

The country’s supermarket industry is currently dominated by retail giants such as the SM Group of the Sy family, Rustan’s of the Tantoco family, and Lucio Co’s Puregold, among others.

A supermarket offers a wide array of food and household products while minimarts are smaller versions or extensions of the supermarket format.

Villar’s All Value is also into the convenience store business through the All Day convenience store brand.

The purely Filipino convenience store brand has almost 100 stores nationwide.

The Villar Group, through listed real estate developer Vista Land & Lifescapes Inc., is also the country’s largest homebuilder, having completed more than 250,000 housing units in 31 provinces and 64 cities and municipalities around the country in the past 38 years.