Filipino billionaire Manny Villar: From rags-to-richest to SEC bombshell

Imagine building an empire so large that a single revaluation — one line in your financial statements — wipes out more than one trillion pesos off your assets almost overnight. 

That’s exactly what happened to Manuel “Manny” Villar Jr., one of the Philippines’ richest, influential men.

The 76-year-old property magnate, who also served as the 25th Senate President, was widely reported as the first Filipino to reach “trillionaire” status (in Philippine pesos) around August 2025.

That distinction was driven by his diversified empire, involved in property, utilities, and retail.

With a textbook rags-to-richest narrative around him, Villar Jr has long positioned himself as one of the Asian country’s most capable leaders. 

How did the top tycoon lose a trillion pesos — and why does it matter?

Here’s what you need to know:

In March (2025), Villar Land Holdings Corp. (stock ticker HVN), one of the companies under the Villar empire, submitted its audited 2024 annual report.

The numbers stunned the market. HVN's unaudited financial report saw his personal net worth jump from $11 billion in 2024 to $17.2 billion as of April 2025.

In its filing, the company reported ₱1.37 trillion ($23.22 billion) in assets — a huge bump and an eyebrow-raising figure for a listed firm. It made HVN appear larger than many established developers.

The spike in land valuation drew regulatory scrutiny. Then the audit came out. 

The biggest portion of the valuation drop: a parcel of land initially valued at ₱1.7 trillion ($28.81 billion). 

When the unaudited figures first came out, Villar Land/ HVN reported assets valued roughly at ₱1.37 trillion ($23.2 billion). 

Once auditors reviewed the assumptions and valuation metused, that number didn’t hold. 

When the audited report came out, that number collapsed to ₱35.7 billion ($605 million) — a gap of 97%. 

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) later ruled that the “real value” of the properties was slightly higher, at ₱52.74 billion ($890 million). 

Still, this SEC valuation meant a gap of about $22.1 billion from Villar Land's submission.

This wasn’t a typo or a rounding error. It was a structural correction.

And a write-down of this magnitude from a single land revaluation is rare.

This wasn’t cash leaving a bank account. This was the market, under the regulator's gaze, recalibrating how much of the empire was worth, at least on paper. 

Under accounting rules known as Philippine Financial Reporting Standards, or PFRS, companies are allowed to revalue land at "fair value".

FPRS the core framework governing how Philippine companies prepare and present financial statements.

Adopted from IFRS by the Financial Reporting Standards Council (FRSC), and mandated by BSP (the Philippine central bank) since 2005, this ensures transparency, comparability, and global alignment for entities like listed firms, as well as banks.

PFRS includes Philippine Accounting Standards (PAS) for basics like revenue and assets, patterned after the revised International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and International Accounting Standards (IAS).

Auditors don’t just check the math — they check the reasoning.

Under current land valuation practices, auditors only sign off if the land value appraisals are backed by:

When auditors reviewed Villar Land’s valuation, some of those assumptions didn’t cut the mustard.

And when the reasoning fails, the numbers collapse.

A bit more background: Villar Land reported in March 2025 profits of nearly ₱1 trillion for 2024, largely driven by the revaluation of land assets tied to “Villar City,” a new business hub in Metro Manila and Cavite, reportedly larger than Makati and BGC combined.

After auditors checked the assumptions and valuation methodology, the numbers didn’t add up, or survive the stress test.

SEC’s verdict: the earlier appraisal failed to meet international valuation standards.

Result: SEC revoked the license of the original valuer.

For the record, Villar — No.3 in Forbes Asia’s list of the Philippines 50 richest as of August 2025 — is the most high-profile individual accused of insider trading by the SEC.

Born to a simple family on December 13, 1949 in Tondo, Manila (the second child in a brood of nine) Villar Jr’s "rags-to-richest" story is the stuff of legend here.

His father, Manuel Montalban Villar, Sr. was an government employee from Iloilo and his mother Curita Bamba, a fish vendor, came from Pampanga and Bataan.

At a young age, Villar Jr knew what hard work meant: he helped his mother sell shrimp and fish in Manila’s Divisoria Market. 

Driven by a desire to improve his lot, Manny worked his way through college, earning a degree in Business Administration and then an MBA from UP, a top-tier state university.

“I learned from my mother what it takes to be an entrepreneur,” he was quoted as saying. “And it means working really hard to achieve your dreams.”

Divisoria shaped his thinking. He vowed early on to become an entrepreneur.

Grit – hard work, persistence, and perseverance – became his life’s guideposts, earning him the title “Mr. Sipag (hard work) at Tiyaga (persistence).”

Fast forward to the present: To understand what happened, we have to look at the numbers.

In May 2025, the PSE halted trading of Villar Land and several other Villar-controlled firms.

On November 14, 2025, following the lifting of the trading halt, investors ran away, and saw HVN shares falling from ₱1,608 to ₱1,126. The sell-off intensified on November 17 (Monday), with the stock sliding further to ₱790. 

On November 18, 2025 (Tuesday), investors dumped the stock further, another 29.97% decline, from ₱789 to ₱552.20.

In regulatory disclosures, Villar Land said it could not explain the steep share price drop following the trading resumption.

Bloomberg reported that the multi-day selloff amounted to a 76% decline in HVN’s value since trading resumed, translating to an estimated $16 billion in paper losses.

Following the stock’s collapse, Villar’s net worth fell to ₱7.89 billion on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index — a 65% drop from the same period last year. 

Shipping and energy magnate Enrique Razon Jr has since overtaken Villar as the richest person in the Philippines.

After the SEC dropped the DOJ bomb on Friday (January 30, 2026), shares of Villar Land tanked. 

PSE halted trading of Villar Land shares for an hour on Monday. Forbes reported that Villar’s net worth has taken a $1.2-billion hit overnight.

The wipeout came after the SEC dropped a bombshell, exposing an alleged stock scam. 

The SEC slapped criminal charges against the flagship Villar Land (ex-Golden MV Holdings), and its directors.

Villar chairs the company. His wife ex-senator Cynthia Villar and kids  — Camille and Mark, plus Manuel Paolo — are also named respondents as directors.​

Related firms like brother Virgilio's Infra Holdings and MGS Construction allegedly pumped fake demand. 

Villar Land fired back: “The company and its directors will respond to all the allegations after official receipt of the SEC’s complaint.” 

Villar Land shares cratered 29% by Monday’s close. 

Spillover carnage: 

Villar Land's fortune tumbled from $4.5 billion on Friday to $3.3 billion per Forbes real-time tracker.

Villar Land was up 11% on Wednesday (February 4, 2026_, to ₱679, but still down 32.10% year-to-date.

The SEC’s accusations are pretty serious: alleged market manipulation and insider trading.

Villar Land is charged with “making false or misleading statements and engaging in acts that operated as fraud or deceit upon investors,” the watchdog said in a statement.

It goes back nearly two years: SEC cited the 2024 financials that ballooned assets to ₱1.33 trillion and profits to ₱999 billion via a disputed property revaluation.

SEC, invoking the Securities Regulation Code, sought the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) action to prosecute Villar, his company and its directors.

Philippines law defines insider trading is the illegal act of buying or selling securities by individuals with access to non-public, material information (insiders) that could affect the security's price.

Under the Philippine Securities Regulation Code (SRC), this is prohibited.

The reason is simple: Keep market integrity.

Penalties for insider trading including fines from ₱50,000 to ₱5 million and imprisonment of 7 to 21 years. 

Despite being frequently investigated by regulators, insider trading cases are rare in the Philippines in terms of successful, final convictions.

While the Securities Regulation Code criminalises it, such cases are notoriously difficult to prove. Until 2021, only one person has been successfully convicted of insider trading since the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) was established in 1992.

The Villars are expected to push back against SEC. This corporate drama is just about to unravel: Both Camille and Mark are sitting senators and directors of Villar Land, along with Manuel Paolo.

The latest SEC action caps prior SEC fines against Villar Land (₱12 million in 2025 for disclosure fails). 

Villar Jr denies wrongdoing, calling the case “baseless”.

The company and its directors will respond to all the allegations after official receipt of the SEC’s complaint, Villar Land said in a statement. 

Analysts welcomed the development, but downgraded their outlook.

In the Philippines, no talk about influence and power is complete without acknowledging the Villars. 

They’re not immune from controversy: Beyond the C5 road extension issue and land conversion debates, there was the Prime Water controversy. 

In 2019, the Villar-owned Prime Water Infrastructure Corp faced investigation following a surge of consumer complaints. 

Authorities cited lapses in joint venture contracts across dozens of water districts nationwide. 

These issues form part of public record, and public perception matters — especially when markets are digesting shocks like massive valuation corrections.

But controversies alone don’t explain why Villar rose as high as he did. He remains one of the most successful entrepreneurs the Philippines has ever produced. 

As a child, he was a fish-monger in Divisoria. The leap from that to building entire cities is the stuff of business textbook. It doesn’t come from luck. It comes from instinct and relentless drive.

Even now, amid this crisis, that entrepreneurial instinct remains. If anything, this shake-up reflects the risks that come with aggressive expansion.

Villar’s latest chapter isn’t the end of his story — it marks a turning point. 

A trillion-peso valuation didn’t survive the audit. But the empire, the vision, and the entrepreneurial instinct are still there.

Many people idolise him, others criticise. This latest episode is a case study on understanding how power, money, and markets can sometimes collide.

For markets to build integrity, certain rules must be adhered to, without fear or favour. Governance and transparency matter. Processes count. 

Lessons?

What gets corrected today may be the lesson that saves money, and public trust in the bean counting system, tomorrow.

It turns out: Even the country’s savviest tycoon can wake up one day staring at a trillion-peso lesson.