Vista Land's [VLL 3.72 1.64%] clarification disclosure confirmed VLL’s plans to IPO a REIT composed of “office assets” in 2022. The Villar Family-owned company said that these plans are subject to market (money), commercial (money), and legal (money) considerations. The article mentioned that the REIT would be spun-out of VLL.
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It should not be surprising that real estate development companies want to take advantage of the REIT Law to maximize their earnings; in fact, it would be probably more note-worthy if a developer with income-generating assets didn’t want to do a REIT. That being said, I don’t have a great handle on how the Villars manage their commercial office towers. I know how they manage their malls, which is to say, they use their own companies as anchor tenants (AllDay, AllHome, etc) to provide stable income and attract other tenants to the mix. But what does VLL or any of the other Villar Family companies have that could act as an anchor tenant for commercial office space? This isn’t a rhetorical question, I’m genuinely curious.
This is a side of the Villar Family empire that I’ve never truly considered before, but that I probably should spend more time thinking about considering Manny Villar’s plans to construct that 2,000 hectare “central business district” in the South. The articles refer to this thing as a “legacy project”, which to me means that it will either be prioritized beyond reason, or left to languish in varying stages of completion and ultimately nearly abandoned until Manny himself passes and one of his children takes up the project as a monument of remembrance. I look forward to reading the prospectus!
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