Trading of shares of Villar Land will remain suspended until it has submitted its financial statement for last year, and the first quarter of the year, the Philippines Stock Exchange (PSE) said yesterday.
Ramon Monzon, PSE president, told reporters yesterday that the bourse is still waiting for the company’s financial documents, which has also been a subject of fines from the Securities and Exchangr Commission (SEC).
The SEC last month slapped the Villar Family-led Villar Land Holdings Corp. with a P12 million fine for late submisssion of financial reports.
In an administrative order on August 18, the SEC also directed Villar Land to pay P2000 for each day it failed to submit its 2024, and first-quarter 2025 reports.
The P12 million fine is in lieu of suspending the company’s registration statement and permit to offer and sell securities, while the P2,000 penalty is an administrative fine, the SEC said in the August order.
The SEC has also denied the company’s request for extension to submit the reports until August 31.
The fine stemmed from the late submission of the financial statements, which Villar Land attributed to the delay in completing the audit for the purchase of 366-hectares of land acquired by Villar Land in September 2024 for P5.2 billion, through Althorp Land Holdings Inc., Chalgrove Properties Inc. and Los Valores Corp., in what is now called as Villar City in south Manila.
The delay has caused Villar Land, still then known as Golden MV Holdings Inc., to restate its 2024 reported net income from an earlier announced spike to P1 trillion from just P1.46 billion the prior year, after it opted to adjust the valuation of the properties in its books to cost basis instead of booking the properties on fair value basis.
The company said that its external auditor, Punongbayan & Araullo (P&A) originally did not accept the valuation of the Villar City land as reported in the three companies’ 2024 financial report. Instead, it required that Villar Land tap a new appraisal report to test the reasonableness of the fair value of the properties.
Villar Land said however that despite the hiring of another independent appraiser, Crown Property Appraisal Corporation Inc., the auditing of its reports has yet to be completed by P&A, and can only file the report by August 31.
In penalizing Villar Land, the SEC said the timely submission of the reports “is mandatory and non-negotiable” under the Securities Regulation Code.
It also noted that it has already extended the deadline for the reports from the original April 15, to June 30.
The SEC also said that the issues on the external audit and valuation disputes are foreseeable and should have been anticipated by the company.
Francis Lim, SEC chairman, said Villar Land has already paid the fines while contesting its validity.
