Listed company Villar Land Holdings Corp. yesterday got nearly clotheslined and knocked down by its own external auditor, Punongbayan & Araullo, after the latter rejected the land revaluation in Villar City, forcing Manuel Villar’s firm to lose a reported income of over P1 trillion by the end of 2024, from just P1.46 billion the year prior. Punongbayan & Araullo (P&A) did not accept the valuation of the Villar City land as reported in the three companies’ 2024 financial report. Instead, P&A required that Villar Land tap a new appraisal report for those assets to test the reasonableness of the fair value of the properties. Villar Land (formerly known as Golden MV Holdings Inc.) 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. The delay to file a 2024 annual report on time and its first quarter financial result, has caused company’s financial woes to spiral as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced that is slapping the the company with a P12 million and a P2000 daily penalty starting July 1, 2025.8.21 Villar Land, one of the listed property holding firms controlled by the family of the former Senator, said in a statement that it will respond to the SEC’s order in due course. 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 an order. The SEC has also denied the company’s request for extension to submit the reports until August 31. Villar Land Holdings in its response to the SEC’s show cause order cited 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., who directly own the property and forms part of what is branded as Villar City in south Manila. In denying Villar Land’s request, the SEC argued that the timely submission of the reports “is mandatory and non-negotiable” under the Securities Regulation Cod. It declared 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. The SEC further scored Villar Land for announcing the increase in valuation of its assets in a March 28 current report announcing the approval to release the 2024 financial statement of the company. “It is apparent that the 28 March 2025 current report sought to publicly make known, substantial fair value gains and increase in total assets of the company due to value appreciation of certain properties,” it said. “However, the same gains and increase in assets were later reported by the company as still pending finalization, verification, audit, and/or testing for reasonableness by its external auditor. This act or scheme could very well mislead the investing public, those transacting with the company, or the market in general.” Villar Land in a statement issued yesterday, said that “it will explain their side on the issues raised and will respond to the SEC’s order in due course.” “We wish to clarify that the delay in the filing of the annual report and the Q12025 quarterly report is not due to the refusal of our external auditor to sign the 2024 audited financial statements but because of said auditor’s varying requests for additional audit procedures to review the valuation of the properties acquired by Villar Land in Villar City,” it said. “We want to highlight that while the company firmly believes that it is the fair value of the Villar City properties that should be reflected in its financial statements, in the interest of securing the immederdayiate release of the 2024 audited financial statements, it reluctantly proposed to the external auditors the use of cost basis in recording its said properties,” it added.