New Villar holding firm to list via backdoor

Vista Land & Lifescapes Inc., the newly formed property holding company of the family of re-electionist Sen. Manuel Villar, will make a backdoor listing on the Philippine Stock Exchange via a share swap deal with listed realty firm C&P Homes Inc.

C&P Homes, also owned by the Villar family, is one of the country’s leading developers of low-cost and affordable housing projects in mega-Manila.

Based on its filing with the Securities and Exchange Commisssion, Vista Land is offering to acquire 1.89 billion common shares of C&P Homes held by minority shareholders in exchange for the same number of shares in Vista Land on the basis of one share for every one C&P share.

Assuming that all minority shareholders avail of Vista Land’s offer, the outstanding capital stock of the company will increase to 6.42 billion common shares.

Vista Land currently has an issued and outstanding capital of P4.53 billion.

Vista Land said it will not realize any cash proceeds from the tender offer nor the listing of 1.89 billion shares at the exchange.

C&P will eventually be withdrawn from the exchange simultaneous with the listing of Vista Land.

The integration of C&P into Vista Land will complete the latter’s portfolio of housing products as it will now be able to address the needs of the low-cost and affordable housing market sectors in the mega-Manila areas.

Among the other real estate firms under Vista Land include Brittany Corp., Crown North, Crown South, Communities Holdings, Communities Cebu, Communities Iloilo, Communities Davao and Communities Pampanga.

Britanny caters to the upscale and leisure housing sector while Crown Asia caters to the medium-income sector. Communities Philippines, on other hand, is the group’s low-cost housing arm.

As of end 2006, Vista Land had P5.24 billion in revenues and a net profit of P839.9 million. Its total assets amounted to P13.8 billion while liabilities stood at P10.06 billion.

Vista Land plans to leverage its experience and reputation as one of the country’s leading residential real estate developers to expand its market reach by accelerating the development of new projects in existing markets as well as by entering into what it perceives as underserved and underdeveloped markets in potential growth areas and regions throughout the country.