Vista Land buys beachfront boutique hotel in Boracay

PROPERTY developer Vista Land & Lifescapes Inc. has debuted into the beach resort business with the acquisition of Mediterranean-themed beachfront estate Boracay Sands, a 54-room boutique hotel in Boracay Island.

The acquisition of this beachfront hotel will allow VLL to learn more about hotel-resort operations, VLL founder and chair Manuel Villar Jr. said in a briefing last week.  This is in line with VLL’s plan to transform itself into a full-range property developer.

Boracay Sands, located in Station 3 of Boracay’s White Beach, offers accommodations priced at P5,000 to P7,000 per night.

After this acquisition, Villar said VLL would build more hotels from scratch by making the most out of its existing landbank.  In areas like Tagaytay or within Metro Manila, he said VLL could build new hotel properties with 150 to 200 rooms.

“We want to give priority to leasing and hotels. We’re now heavy on BPOs (business process outsourcing), malls and we will start investing in hotels,” Villar said. “We bought a small hotel, for practice..and we’ll probably put up a second one.”

VLL recently consolidated with affiliate shopping mall developer Starmalls Inc.  In the long run, Villar said the growth of Starmalls might outpace the other businesses of VLL.  In the future, he said all malls in the portfolio might be rebranded as Vista Mall.

In the years ahead, Villar said: “We will have a decent number of malls and decent numbers of hotels.”

On hotels, Villar said the group had yet to define which market segment to focus on.  He said Boracay Sands was not a five-star offering.

VLL grew its net profit last year by 14 percent to a record-high of P7.2 billion, on the back of organic growth and the additional earnings from the consolidation of Starmalls. Excluding the results of Starmalls, VLL’s net profit went up by 10 percent to P6.3 billion.

Starmalls chalked up P904 million in net profit last year, up by 57 percent, on the back of a 44-percent growth in rental revenues to P2.6 billion.

“Starmalls should be experiencing rapid growth,” Villar said.

The consolidation of Starmalls into VLL is seen boosting the company’s recurring earnings to reach 25 percent of group-wide cash flow within this year and 25 percent of net income in two years.