Vista Land retains top credit rating

MANILA, Philippines — Villar-owned property developer and homebuilder Vista Land & Lifescapes Inc. has retained the highest issuer rating by a local debt watcher.

In the official rating letter issued by Credit Rating Investor’s Services Philippines Inc. (CRISP), the debt watcher reaffirmed its ‘AAA’ rating on Vista Land with a stable outlook.

Vista Land chairman Manuel Villar said the company would continue to deliver on its commitment to build more residential communities throughout the country, consistent with its goal of being present in roughly 200 cities nationwide.

“We welcome the affirmation of our AAA rating by CRISP. This affirmation fuels our drive to continuously deliver quality homes to an increasing number of Filipinos and provide them with a quality lifestyle through our integrated development – communicities,” Villar said.

The debt watcher cited the company’s sustained leadership in the low cost and affordable housing market, continuing national coverage and strategic landbanking initiatives, and strong financial performance.

Furthermore, CRISP also cited Vista Land’s strong management team and that the company’s operating model enables it to replicate large-scale housing community projects. Its scalable, standardized processes and technologies allow the company to efficiently build and deliver high-quality house and lot packages.

“This is again proof that we have put in place a company with a strong management team and a business model that can withstand challenges such as the recent rise of inflation,” Villar said.

In the nine months to September, Vista Land launched residential projects worth P38 billion, most of which were in the low and affordable segment and outside Metro Manila.

CRISP said this signifies the company’s commitment to bring its projects nationwide. Vista Land is present in 145 cities and municipalities across 47 provinces in the country, and it is moving closer to its target of reaching 200 cities and municipalities in the near future.

The company also increased its leasing portfolio to 1,160,381 square meters of gross floor area.  To date, Vista Land has 26 malls, seven office buildings and over 50 commercial centers.

Manuel Paolo Villar, president and CEO of Vista Land, said the company is glad that its efforts are recognized by Crisp.

“We are very glad that our efforts were noticed in CRISP’s latest pronouncement affirming our ‘AAA’ rating and hope that our work to provide quality homes and lifestyle would continue to be appreciated by our very own customers.” 

Moving forward, the company is taking a pro-active stance in managing its debt and has undertaken several liability management exercises to lower its cost of borrowings, extend debt maturities and improve debt covenants. 

During the nine-month period this year, Vista Land registered a 16 percent growth in net income to P8.3 billion from P7.1 billion in the same period last year.

This was on the back of consolidated revenues for the period of P31 billion, up 16 percent from the previous year’s P26.9 billion. Real estate registered an increase of 16 percent from P20.8 billion to P24.2 billion this year.

Likewise, leasing income posted a 19 percent increase to P5.2 billion from P4.3 billion in the comparable period last year. Leasing operations now account for 17 percent of total revenue, 28 percent of EBITDA and 24 percent of net income.

Against this backdrop, Vista Land is tapping the debt market anew.

It has already secured board approval to sell to the public peso-denominated fixed-rate retail bonds with an aggregate amount of up to P5 billion with an oversubscription option of another P5 billion from its remaining 15 billion shelf-registered bonds.