Vista Land net profit up 15% in 6 months

Villar-led Vista Land & Lifescapes Inc. (VLL) booked a 15-percent year-on-year growth in first-semester net profit to P4.5 billion as it unlocked higher revenues from residential development and leasing portfolio.

For the full year, VLL expects net profit to grow by 11 percent to P9 billion, company president Manuel Paolo Villar said in a press briefing. Shopping mall arm Starmalls is expected to contribute P2 billion, around 30-percent higher than a year ago. By next year, net profit may breach P10 billion, he said.

For the first half, consolidated revenues amounted to P18.2 billion, up 16 percent from last year, VLL said in a regulatory filing yesterday.

Villar said demand for residential units turned out stronger than anticipated. This emboldened VLL to increase the amount of new inventory it will launch this year to at least P50 billion. The target had earlier been jacked up to P42 billion from P30 billion only two months ago.

VLL launched projects with an estimated value of P28.3 billion during the first half of the year, exceeding the new inventory launched for the whole of last year amounting to P26.2 billion.

In the first half, VLL’s revenues from real estate increased by 14 percent year-on-year to P14.4 billion, improving from the low single-digit growth registered by VLL a year ago.

Recurring revenues also expanded by 37 percent year-on-year to P2.9 billion. This segment now accounts for 23 percent of total income from 19 percent in the same period last year.

Starmalls contributed P1 billion in net profit and P2.7 billion in revenues in the first semester, up 37 percent and 36 percent, respectively.

“We are pleased with our first half results and we are very optimistic that we will achieve another record year,” Vista Land chair and founder Manuel Villar Jr. said in a statement.

As an indicator of future revenue growth, VLL also reported sustained sales take-up.

“Our reservations sales sustained the 12 percent growth registered during the first quarter of the year to end the semester at P32.3 billion,” the elder Villar said.

For the full year, VLL expects to post reservation sales of about P64 billion, maintaining a 12-percent growth from last year.

The company ended the first semester with total consolidated assets of P190.7 billion.

Capital expenditures for the first half amounted to P16.4 billion.