November 13, 2025 will not fade easily from the memory of Manuel Villar. For the Filipino property magnate—ranked the country’s third wealthiest by Forbes—that date marked a reckoning. His flagship investment holding firm, Villar Land Holdings Corp., formerly Golden M.V. Holdings, finally submitted its long-delayed 2024 audited annual report to the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE). The filing arrived seven months past deadline—and detonated like a financial depth charge.
At the heart of the storm was a single number: P52.74 billion
That was the newly audited fair value of 366 hectares of prime land inside Villar City, the 3,500-hectare masterplanned sprawl straddling Metro Manila and Cavite. A year earlier, that same land had been valued at P1.33 trillion, an eye-popping figure that triggered intense regulatory scrutiny. After all, Villar Land acquired the land for just P5.2 billion.
The swing was not a simple correction—it was a collapse.
The original trillion-peso mark emerged from an appraisal using the income approach, a methodology that pegs value to expected future cash flow. But following discussions with its external auditor, Punongbayan & Araullo, the company pivoted to the market approach, which strips away projections and looks only at comparable market sales. The result: a valuation that disintegrated by more than 96 percent.
The market responded with ruthless clarity.
Villar Land shares, frozen since mid-May, resumed trading that same day—only to be hurled into freefall. After a momentary surge to P2,300, the stock plunged to P1,608 by market close, then spiraled to P500 within a week. The PSE repeatedly demanded explanations for the vertiginous price swings. Each time, the company insisted it was aware of no material event that could possibly explain the collapse.
Investors, it seemed, disagreed.
From November 13 to November 19, Villar Land shed 78 percent of its market capitalization—wiping out roughly P1.1 trillion in paper value. Because Villar himself controls about 88 percent of the company through Fine Properties Inc. and Cambridge Group Inc., the plunge effectively vaporized USD17.3 billion of his wealth.
For a mogul who built an empire on land, this episode may be remembered as the moment when land values—once the foundation of his fortune—suddenly felt anything but solid.
