In a Jan. 30 criminal complaint, the regulator said coordinated trades carried out over several years led by Villar’s brother, Virgilio Villar, and related entities, helped push Villar Land Holdings Corp. shares to new highs.
The SEC also alleged insider trading by Sen. Camille Villar ahead of a key corporate disclosure in 2017, years before she entered Congress, with the transaction only made known to the public after two years.
In a statement to InsiderPH on Saturday, firm vowed to cooperate with the SEC.
“Villar Land and its directors will answer all the allegations leveled against them after formal receipt of the alleged complaint,” it said.
Big picture
These moves point to a pattern of repeated disclosure failures that go against securities laws designed to ensure all investors receive timely information so they can make informed investment decisions.
This ultimately led to one of the SEC’s largest corporate enforcement actions in years and among the first major cases pursued by SEC chair Francis Ed. Lim, a former CEO at the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE), a few months after he took office.
Relentless share price gains
Villar Land (VLC) originally listed on the PSE as Golden Haven Memorial Park on June 29, 2016 at P10.50 per share, valuing the firm at nearly P5.2 billion.
At its peak last year, the firm was worth P2,498.00 per share or over P1.6 trillion, a gain of almost 23,700 percent in a decade.
Thanks to speculation surrounding Villar’s prized 3,500-hectare estate known as Villar City, it became the PSE’s most valuable company just behind global insurance giants Sun Life Financial Inc. and Manulife Financial Corp.
Since the SEC’s crackdown was announced in the latter part of 2025, its value has since corrected and tumbled to roughly P600 billion, still among the country’s most valuable companies.
Buying by related firms
An insider familiar with the SEC complaint said Virgilio Villar was a central player in driving up Villar Land’s stock price.
Using his firm Infra Holdings Corp., the younger Villar’s trades accounted for 506 out of 657 trades or nearly 80 percent of all transactions that set new high prices for the stock, the insider said.
These buy-up trades also helped lift Villar Land’s share price from P755 to as high as P2,598 between 2023 and 2025.
Infra Holdings allegedly did this by purchasing shares higher than current market prices to create the impression of active trading of Villar Land, which has a relatively small public ownership profile at just 11.3 percent.
Even during its bull run, the firm would record daily trades as small as a few thousand pesos—unusual for a corporation valued in the hundreds of billions of pesos.
Villar contractor also bought up shares
Another affiliate, MGS Construction, also helped lift Villar Land’s share price, accounting for about 40 percent of total buy transactions in late December 2017, the insider said.
The buying pushed the stock from P21.80 on Jan. 22, 2018 to P99 just four trading days later.
That marked a gain of more than 350 percent by Jan. 26 that year.
MGS Construction is another Villar-linked firm whose client list is dominated by the family’s businesses such as Camella, Brittany, Vista Residences, VistaMall, PrimeWater, AllHome, and Coffee Project.
Villar brother bought up shares even after 2025 suspension
Villar Land was suspended for six months last year as it finalized its audited financials after its external auditor, Punongbayan & Araullo, pushed back against the company’s massive land revaluation of assets.
It was also during this period when Securities and Exchange Commission raised questions over the company’s soaring price.
Despite the heightened scrutiny, Infra Holdings resumed purchases after the trading suspension was lifted last Nov. 13, 2025.
The SEC alleged that Infra Holdings pushed up prices of Villar Land to as much as P2,100—over 440 percent from its post-suspension low.
Camille Villar insider trading flagged
The SEC also questioned a series of share purchase made by Camille Villar on Dec. 27, 2017 before she became lawmaker.
The issue was not that she bought shares but the timing, since it was made hours before the company, which was stilled called Golden Haven, announced its intention to purchase affiliate Bria Homes for about P3 billion in shares.
This was an important deal because it marked the company’s diversification from developing final resting places to first homes and mass housing.
Shares of the company surged over the following weeks, also aided by purchases made by Villar entities such as MGS Construction.
Based on market prices at the time, Camille Villar’s original P1.43 million investment for 73,600 shares would have been worth about P7.3 million by late January 2018.
According to the insider familiar with the SEC complaint, the transaction was reported only on Feb. 1, 2019, well beyond the disclosure period required under securities laws.
SEC action
On Jan. 30, 2026, the SEC filed criminal complaints naming Villar Land Holdings Corp., tycoon Manuel B. Villar Jr., members of the Villar family, company directors, and related firms Infra Holdings Corp. and MGS Construction, along with their officers.
The SEC accused them of using misleading disclosures, insider trading, and coordinated trading to inflate Villar Land’s share price and mislead investors.
What’s next?
According to the insider, the SEC is asking prosecutors to go after the profits or proceeds allegedly earned from violations of the Securities Regulation Code, as well as any property used to carry out the offenses.
It is also seeking both civil and criminal forfeiture, including asset preservation and other penalties, against the respondents.
Miguel R. Camus has been a reporter covering various domestic business topics since 2009.
