Alby & Joby Xerez-Burgos: Princes of Property

When Jose Antonio “Joby” Xerez-Burgos was a little boy, he would tag along with his dad Freddie when the latter would go to work. The elder Xerez-Burgos would ride his motorbike from their house in Ayala Alabang to the site of the country club and inspect the progress of the construction. He was, you see, the developer for the club, and that, to him, was work.

But for young Joby, it seemed like going to work was just one hell of a ride. With the wind hissing on his face amid the mango trees of the property, he started to think that his dad’s job was real cool.

And he ended up just like his dad, inspecting and supervising development projects under the family-owned Landco Pacific Development Corp., which his father began in 1989.

After being a consultant to other development projects after his retirement from Ayala, Alfred “Freddie” Xerez-Burgos Jr. started Landco with a former colleague Danny Antonio. The year 1989 and the immediate year thereafter weren’t exactly good years to start a business. A bloody coup attempt in December 1989 all but wiped out business activity and confidence. The company had a financial backer who disappeared into the woodwork, leaving Freddie and Danny holding the bag with only P500,000 as capital.

Hard work and connections and a keen sense of what the market needed kept the company afloat, and eventually, sailing full steam ahead. Among their first clients were Sta. Lucia, Filinvest and Ayala. They also developed the Tutuban Mall in Manila, which pioneered the concept of stalls within a mall. The project showcased Landco’s versatility in its development approaches.

But it wasn’t till they developed the 88-hectare Punta Fuego Property that Landco became a byword in the industry. Turned down by the giants, the Punta Fuego project would eventually become the “benchmark for seaside communities” in the country.

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Freddie Xerez-Burgos’ eldest son Albert III or Alby started as a clerk-typist at Landco, rising eventually to become senior vice president. Like his brother, Joby, he was not pressured to join the family business and can’t imagine himself “doing anything else.”

Joby, also a vice president in the firm, says their positions “weren’t handed to us on a silver platter. We had to work for them.”

This included taking up their master’s to enrich their management skills. Landco hit a low in 1997 during the Asian financial crisis, and Alby decided it was a good time to go back to school. He took up his master’s at the Asian Institute of Management, and his thesis was on the concept of a “leisure farm.”

He thus initiated a new direction for the company.

“At that time, bagsak ang golf, so we decided to come up with the leisure farm concept,” recalls Alby. “We catered to the same market as those who could afford to buy golf shares. After all, don’t most of us want to retire to our own farm someday, if not sooner, than later?”

He was right, and apparently, people don’t really want to wait for their retirement in order to enjoy a farm where they could have a resthouse and their own patch of land to grow vegetables. Landco thus developed Leisure Farms in Lemery, Batangas and Ponderosa in Silang, Cavite.

Business was bountiful as the brothers realized that “there were a lot of closet farmers among us.”

Alby says their farming ventures were so successful they actually have a subsidiary, LFTI, that teaches people how to farm and grow vegetables. They also sell vegetables in their farm in Tagaytay, which is visited weekly by hundreds of school children on field trips.

Joby is now deep into the development of the 415-hectare Villa Escudero plantation resort, 45 hectares of which will be developed into gardens and farm plots. The present resort will not be touched, but there will be more lakes created, plus the first casino and golf course in that part of Quezon province straddled by the property.

Joby doesn’t fear the NPA in the area, because the Villa gives more jobs than anyone else and treats the people well.

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Another project of these princes of property development is the middle-income Tribeca complex along the South Super Highway and a 210-hectare project in Cebu.

Alby says that for the Tribeca project, they are targeting middle-income earners with very easy-on-the-pocket interest rates.

Although their two younger siblings,  Carlo and Cristina, are not into the business, Alby and Joby have made Landco a part of their life and their future.

If their lives are planned the way their real estate projects are, the future looks very bright indeed.

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