Golden Haven site

Villar’s `deathcare’ business becomes 2nd most valuable company on PSE

Manuel Villar Jr. 
Golden MV Holdings Chair 

The trillion-peso company on the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) is a developer of cemetery plots and mass housing that has long puzzled financial analysts. 

Golden MV Holdings, owned by the country’s second-richest tycoon, Manuel Villar Jr., has doubled its share price this year on daily trades as small as a few thousand pesos per day. 

Trading under the stock symbol "HVN",  shares of the company reached a market value of P1.06 trillion on Thursday, gaining 0.55 percent. 

This positions the holding firm just behind blue chip SM Investments, owner of the county’s biggest bank, retail and shopping mall empire, worth P1.14 trillion. 

No PSEi inclusion 

Golden MV Holdings’ unexpected price increase has left market observers baffled.

“If it were more liquid, it would probably be part of the PSE Index,” Jospeh Roxas, the president of stock brokerage house Eagle Equities Inc., told InsiderPH. 

He was referring to the company’s relatively low public float of 11 percent. This is the below the 20 percent required for inclusion in the PSE Index, comprised of the country’s 30 largest and most actively traded companies.

Low volume 

 “That shows you what can happen when a stock is illiquid,” Roxas said. 

A review of the company’s recent activity reveals that the firm is rarely traded. On Aug. 15, only P7,500 worth of shares changed hands by the end of the session. 

Golden MV Holdings, which listed as Golden Haven in 2016, raised P778 million from its IPO. (Photo from the PSE)

“Hopefully, the other Villar stocks go up as well,” said Roxas.

He was referring to the group’s listed firms that continue to underperform the market. 

Soaring P/E ratio 

By the usual valuation metrics, Golden MV Holdings continues to perplex analysts. 

It earned P774 million in profit in the first half of 2024, which would be P1.54 billion if simply doubled for the full-year estimate.

While this seems substantial, it falls short when using the traditional price-to-earnings method, as the company is valued at over 680 times its expected net income for the year.

By comparison, SM Investments earned P40.2 billion in the first half. Using the same simple formula, it’s worth a more reasonable 14.7 times expected earnings in 2024. 

This weekly chart of Golden MV Holdings shows a long-term uptrend since diversifying into mass housing in 2018, with a steep climb in late 2023 that continues to leave analysts puzzled. (Chart by TradingView) 

Mass housing diversification 

Cemetery parks developer Golden MV holdings, originally named Golden Haven Memorial Park, went public in 2016, selling shares at P10.50 each, valuing the company at around P5 billion.

Two years later, Villar decided to diversify into mass housing, renaming it Golden Bria Holdings. During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the company underwent its latest rebranding to Golden MV Holdings.

“I have no idea what’s going on,” an analyst with a major stockbrokerage house said. “I’m not sure anyone has any idea why the market cap is so high”. 

About the author
Miguel R. Camus
Miguel R. Camus

Miguel R. Camus has been a reporter covering various domestic business topics since 2009.

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