Good evening, everyone. A very warm welcome to all for the Embassy REIT's first quarter FY 2023 earnings conference call. Currently, all participants are in listen-only mode. Our speakers will address your questions at the end of the presentation during the question and answer session. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I would now like to introduce your host for today's conference, Mr. Abhishek Agarwal, Head of Investor Relations for Embassy REIT. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you, operator. Welcome to the first quarter FY 2023 earnings call for Embassy REIT. Embassy REIT released its financial results for the quarter ending June 30, 2022, a short while back. As is our standard practice, we have placed our financial statements, earnings presentation discussing our performance, and a supplemental financial and operating data book in the investors section of our website at www.embassyofficeparks.com. As always, we would like to inform you that management may make certain comments on this call that one could deem forward-looking statements. Please be advised that the REIT's actual results may differ from these statements. Embassy REIT does not guarantee these statements or results and is not obliged to update them at any time.
Specifically, the financial guidance and any pro forma information that we will provide on this call are management estimates based on certain assumptions and have not been subjected to any audit, review, or examination procedure. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such guidance and information, and there can be no assurance that we will be able to achieve the same. Further, there are risks and uncertainties relating to the COVID pandemic and its economic effects on Embassy REIT and on our occupiers. Joining me today are Vikaash Khdloya, the CEO, Abhishek Agrawal, the interim CFO, and Ritwik Bhattacharjee, the CIO. Vikaash will start off with business and industry overview, followed by Ritwik and Abhishek. We will then open the floor to questions. Over to you, Vikaash.
Good evening, and thank you all for joining us on the call today. Let me start by once again thanking Mike Holland, who retired earlier this month. On behalf of the entire team at Embassy REIT, I thank Mike for his contributions over the years and wish him well for the future. I'm excited and honored to lead the REIT through the next phase of growth after working with the management team and our sponsors for over a decade. Diving into our Q1 FY 2023 results, we delivered a strong all-round quarter, with our record leasing being the key highlight. We signed a total of 1.8 million sq ft leases with healthy deal traction across new leases, pre-commitments in our under-development projects, as well as end-of-tenure lease renewals. We accelerated development of our ongoing 4.6 million sq ft office projects.
We successfully launched the 619-key dual-branded Hilton hotels at Embassy Manyata, and we are now proceeding with development of 518-key dual-branded Hilton hotels at Embassy TechVillage, or ETV. On our financial performance, we delivered a 9% year-on-year growth in our net operating income and announced healthy distributions of INR 5,052 million, or INR 5.33 per unit, marking our thirteenth consecutive quarter with a 100% payout. Our balance sheet remains conservative with low 27% gearing. Given the rising interest rate environment, we are well-positioned with 64% of our overall debt locked in at fixed rates of 6.7%.
With record COVID vaccinations normalizing economic activity and steady rise in back to office, occupiers have now started planning for their space requirements, both to accommodate headcount increase over the last two years as well as their business growth. The physical occupancy in our properties reached 66,000 during last week, an over 20% increase compared to last quarter. Although the pace of ramp up varied across our properties and micro markets, the upward trajectory in the numbers is highly encouraging and is translating to increase in lease inquiries and deal closures. Let me now update you on our leasing performance. As you may recollect, during last quarter, we provided a total leasing guidance of five million sq ft for FY 2023.
We are happy to report that during Q1, we achieved a record total leasing of 1.8 million sq ft across 25 deals, making it the highest total leasing in a single quarter across the last seven years. This 1.8 million sq ft includes new leasing of 415,000 sq ft at 31% re-leasing spreads and at above-market rents. It includes end-of-tenure renewals of 850,000 sq ft, mainly by our IT services occupiers at our Pune and Noida properties and at 9% renewal spreads, and also 550,000 sq ft pre-commitment to JP Morgan in our under-development Block 8 at ETV.
Notably, we added 15 new occupiers during the quarter across multiple high-growth sectors, and our occupier base has now expanded to 214 compared to 165 at the time of our IPO in 2019. With this, we ended the quarter with a stable occupancy of 87% and a promising one million sq ft new deal pipeline. Of our 3.1 million sq ft expiry for FY 2023, we have successfully renewed 850,000 sq ft and expect a further one million sq ft as likely renewals. The balance 1.2 million sq ft are likely exits for FY 2023, including 453,000 sq ft exits witnessed during Q1. These exits are in line with our previous guidance and are mainly due to relocation or consolidation of occupiers with legacy leases.
We view this as positive churn, given that in-place rents on these exits are significantly below market, with over 50% mark-to-market opportunity. Additionally, we secured 15% rent escalations on 1.9 million sq ft across 22 deals in Q1. As mentioned earlier, our mark-to-market rent potential and our contracted rental escalation are embedded growth drivers for our business. Our leading pipeline and conversations with occupiers support our view on three key trends. First, there has been a clear acceleration in the number of new entrants looking to set up their offices in India. This is driven by India's talent availability at scale and the cost advantage that India's office market continues to provide.
We signed a number of such deals this quarter with new occupiers, including players from growth sectors like cloud infrastructure, cybersecurity, and e-commerce, sunrise sectors like renewables and healthcare tech, and rebound sectors like media and automobile. With an average deal size of 25,000 sq ft for our Q1 new leases, our strategy of focusing on high-growth occupiers in early stages of their India operations sets us in a strong position to capture future demand as they expand their India footprint. Second, given record hiring and increased offshoring, our on-ground interactions indicate that multiple corporates have onboarded more employees than their existing office capacities. Additionally, many corporate leaders have reiterated that physical offices will remain at the core of their business given the need for collaboration, culture, and team building, thereby driving steady back to office.
Both these factors together have led occupiers to activate request for proposals or RFPs for their immediate space needs, as well as initiate planning for their medium-term requirements. This has also resulted in healthy pre-commitment inquiries in under-construction properties as occupiers look to lock in office space to meet their future business growth. Third, given employee attrition concerns across industries, hiring and retaining talent has become a top business priority. Employee wellness, health, and safety have now become a core focus of RFPs, and occupiers today are seeking higher product standards for their employees. As a result, institutional-grade, wellness-oriented, and green-rated buildings have become the preferred choice, especially for global corporates. With a high-quality portfolio, total business ecosystem offering, and ESG focus, we are well-placed to benefit from this secular trend. To sum up, these emerging trends provide significant tailwinds to our business.
We are well-positioned to benefit from the resurgent office demand given our best-in-class properties and our concentration to Bangalore, India's best performing office market. Moving to updates on our ESG program, which is core to our business strategy. In line with 19 defined ESG programs, our INR 3 billion planned investments over the next three years are progressing satisfactorily. Our 75/25 renewable program, 20 MW solar rooftop project, and USGBC LEED and British Safety Council certifications, all of these are aimed to future-proof our properties as sustainability takes center stage. For more details on our significant initiatives and progress thereon, we encourage you to read through our latest annual ESG report, which is available on our website. Overall, a great start to FY 2023 with strong leasing performance and promising growth prospects.
Despite the external macro environment, our business continues to be resilient, backed by the strength of our growing occupier base, our on-ground teams, and our fortress balance sheet. We remain focused to deliver on our guidance and to accelerate our business to the next growth phase. Ritwik will now expand further on our growth initiatives, and then Abhishek will provide details on our financial performance. Over to Ritwik.
Thanks, Vikaash. Good evening, everyone. An update on our key growth initiatives for the quarter. We've accelerated development on 4.6 million sq ft of ongoing office projects. This includes 1.9 million sq ft at ETV, of which we have successfully pre-committed 550,000 sq ft to JP Morgan. We've successfully launched the 619-key Hilton hotels at Embassy Manyata, and we've commenced development of the 518-key Hilton hotel complex at ETV. We funded INR 9.3 billion to GLSP, our joint venture entity to finance the Embassy Golf Links or EGL add-on acquisition. We continue to evaluate the five million sq ft Chennai ROFO opportunity we received from Embassy Sponsor. First, an update on the development portfolio and total business system, ecosystem investments.
We've accelerated development on our 4.6 million sq ft on-campus projects, including the recently launched 1.9 million sq ft office development at ETV. ETV is perhaps the best example of the growing market for office space that the ORR micro market in Bangalore is witnessing, as demonstrated by the 550,000 sq ft pre-commitment from JP Morgan. With limited upcoming supply in our micro markets, particularly in Bangalore, we are well-positioned to benefit from the resurgent leasing demand and healthy pre-commitment activity. The 600,000 sq ft M3 Block B at Embassy Manyata has been impacted by delays in obtaining pre-construction approvals, including the acquisition of necessary transferable development rights or TDRs. Other than this, we remain on track with our target delivery schedules across our 4.6 million sq ft development pipeline.
We continue to evaluate one million sq ft of leasable area enhancements that comprises a 600,000 sq ft additional redevelopment opportunity at Embassy Manyata, and a 400,000 sq ft potential new block at ETV. We are in the process of obtaining regulatory approvals for these projects, and we will update you on the progress. We are continuously upgrading the efficiency, wellness, and sustainability performance metrics of our existing properties. In aggregate, we have committed over INR 27 billion of investments in our development pipeline and in infrastructure upgrades. On costs, the commercial real estate industry, like several other sectors, is currently experiencing cost inflation. While we're not completely insulated from this, we are largely tracking our previously disclosed budgets with respect to the 4.1 million sq ft of ongoing development. This is due to our agile procurement, existing vendor relationships, and our record of timely project execution.
Moving on to our hospitality business, it has seen a remarkable turnaround post-pandemic. In May, we launched one of India's largest mixed-use hotel complexes at Embassy Manyata. This complex comprises 619-key dual-branded Hilton-Hilton hotels, a 60,000-sq-ft convention center, and 85,000 sq ft of retail and F&B. We're pleased to report that this Hilton complex achieved 47% occupancy and was EBITDA positive in its first operating quarter. We've secured over 150 corporate contracts, and we continue to witness healthy demand for the convention center. Our other two operating hotels, the Hilton EGL and the Four Seasons, are also experiencing improvements in operating performance and increasing occupancy. Our overall hotel EBITDA for Q1 was INR 145 million, which tracks ahead of our guidance.
Given the rebound in business travel, we've accelerated the development of the 518-key dual-branded Hilton hotels at ETV. The ORR micro market is a significantly underserved hospitality market, and we're confident that the hotels will mirror the success of the Embassy Manyata hotels. Excavation is currently underway on site, and we expect to deliver the hotels by 2025. Next, an update on our acquisitions. Our acquisition philosophy continues to be one of delivering growth to unitholders. We look for high quality, large scale business parks that mirror our existing portfolio. We also finance our acquisitions with a prudent mix of debt and equity to manage our cost of capital and to deliver accretive growth to unitholders. During the last financial year, our 50% owned investment entity, GLSP, acquired approximately 400,000 sq ft of area from strata owners.
The acquisition consolidates GLSP's footprint to 3.1 million sq ft at Embassy Golf Links, which is unequivocally one of India's best office parks. GLSP also acquired the property management business for the entire 4.7-million-sq-ft park. During the quarter, GLSP fully integrated this acquisition, and the asset lead team did a terrific job in leasing up this newly acquired area, which is now 87% occupied. In addition, we continue to evaluate the right of first offer opportunity we received from Embassy Sponsor in January with respect to Embassy TechZone, a 26-acre business park in Chennai that totals around five million sq ft when fully developed. Of this, 1.4 million sq ft is fully complete and 85% occupied, and an additional 1.6 million sq ft is currently under development.
As we've mentioned, we like Chennai as a growth market, and the scale of this property and location of this micro market continues to draw interest from global occupiers. We will update you as we progress on our evaluation. Additionally, we continue to evaluate numerous third-party opportunities. Our robust governance framework, strong balance sheet, and access to capital markets continue to be our key strengths as we pursue accretive growth. Over to Abhishek now for our financial updates.
Good evening, everybody. Key financial highlights for Q1 ending here. We grew net income by 9% year on year to INR 6,773 million, with operating margin of 82%. We announced distributions of INR 5,052 million, or INR 5.33 per unit, with 88% as tax free to unitholders. We successfully raised INR 10 billion debt at five-year fixed rate of 7.35%, taking our total fixed cost debt to 64%. We continue to maintain our strong balance sheet with low leverage of 27% and pro forma debt headroom of INR 108 billion. Let me take you through the details. First, an update on our Q1 financial year 2023 income performance.
Revenue from operations grew by 12% year-on-year to INR 8,294 million. Mainly driven by the delivery of our 1.1 million build-to-suit project at ETV. Launch of our 619-key Hilton Hotel at Embassy Manyata, as well as business ramp-up in our existing hotel portfolio. Net operating income grew by 9% year-on-year to INR 6,773 million, mainly driven by increase in revenue from operations, partially offset by the increased hotel operating expenses corresponding to the revenue increase. Our NOI margins continued to be best in class at an impressive 82%, reflecting both the scale and efficiency of our business, as well as our low fee structure. Our EBITDA also grew by 9% to INR 6,544 million, in line with the NOI increase.
Net distributable cash flows stood at INR 5,056 million, down by 5% year-over-year, but up by 1% quarter-over-quarter. The year-over-year increase in our NOI and EBITDA contributed positively to our NDCF, which was offset by incremental interest costs on recently developed buildings as well as the INR 46 billion coupon-bearing debt raised to finance our earlier zero coupon bond. Further, earlier today, the board of directors declared a distribution per unit of INR 5.33 for Q1, representing a 100% payout ratio. Notably, 88% of our Q1 distributions are tax-free to our unit holders benefiting from the simplification of two-tier structures at Embassy Manyata and ETV. Moving to our balance sheet updates and debt strategy.
During Q1, we raised INR 10 billion five-year fixed rate debt at 7.35% and utilized INR 9.3 billion to provide debt financing to GLSP REIT's investment entity for its add-on acquisition at EGL. With this debt raise, 64% of our INR 134 billion debt stack now carries a fixed rate with an average maturity of three years, which insulates us to a large extent from the rising interest rate environment. The remaining 36% floating rate debt, totaling INR 49 billion, is exposed to interest rate movements, though impact during Q1 was minimal. However, of this INR 49 billion floating rate debt, we successfully moved INR 25.5 billion, constituting 19% of our total debt from a quarterly to a yearly reset schedule, thereby locking it in fixed interest rates for a one-year period.
While the rise in short-term market rates would impact our overall interest costs, this recent renegotiation helps us mitigate a pro forma INR 155 million rise in interest costs on an annualized basis. With this, 83% of our debt book is now locked in at a fixed cost for financial year 2023, and we have less than 1% of our debt coming up for maturity during this fiscal. This helps us hedge our balance sheet and substantially mitigates the impact of rising interest rates. We remain focused on actively managing our debt book, and we will continue to explore additional refinancing opportunities. With triple-A stable-rated debt, our balance sheet remains robust and well-positioned to finance future growth.
Furthermore, our entire debt book is now fully coupon-bearing, thereby simplifying the cash flow through for our distribution and diversifying participation from various debt investors, including banks, domestic mutual funds, corporate treasuries, insurers, and FPIs. Lastly, an update on our financial year 2023 guidance. As a recap, last quarter, we provided our detailed financial year 2023 guidance with a midpoint NOI at INR 27,030 million, with a ±5% range and a midpoint DPU at INR 21.7 per unit with a similar ±5% range, thereby implying a 9% year-on-year increase in NOI and in-line DPU at midpoint guidance.
This guidance was based on certain key assumptions, including a total lease up of five million sq ft, comprising 1.7 million sq ft new deals, 1.2 million sq ft re-leases, and 2.1 million sq ft lease renewals, as well as rent escalations of 14% on 8.2 million sq ft leases, and a positive EBITDA of INR 400 million from our core operating hotels. Along with this, we had also factored the impact of incremental interest costs of INR 2.3 billion relating to our recently delivered buildings as well as our ZCB refinance with a fully coupon-bearing debt. As at Q1, we are on track with our leasing guidance and are tracking ahead of our estimates for performance of our operating hotels.
However, we expect our interest costs to be higher due to the impact of rising interest rates on our floating rate debt. Overall, we maintain our earlier financial year 2023 guidance range. We continue to remain focused on delivering to our unitholders, as demonstrated consistently since our listing. Over to Vikaash for his concluding remarks.
Thank you, Abhishek. In summary, FY 2023 is off to a solid start with 1.8 million sq ft leasing in the first quarter and the demand outlook for Indian office market looking very encouraging. India's favorable demographics and abundant STEM talent continue to act as catalysts to offshoring demand by global corporates. This increased offshoring supports expansion of tech and global captive customer base in India, thereby providing growth impetus to our business. Nifty REIT remains an ideal combination of yield, growth, and stability.
Our stock continues to be resilient even in a volatile global market. With 13 consecutive quarters of 100% distributions, we have now delivered total annualized returns of 13% to the benefit of our 47,000 and growing unitholder base. Looking forward, our strategy remains unchanged. Backed by a high quality portfolio, favorable concentration in right markets, and strong balance sheet, we continue to remain resilient, as demonstrated during the COVID pandemic. We are now accelerating our growth investments and initiatives. Our quality occupier base, on-campus development, and acquisitions pipeline all drive our growth and help us consolidate our market position. Significantly, the recent rebound in leasing activity, supported by continuing occupier expansion plans, positions us well as we move forward. With this, let's now move to Q&A.
Thank you very much, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question-and-answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question, press star and one on their touch-tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star, then two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. We will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. To ask a question, please press star one now. We have a first question from the line of Kunal Tayal with Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Sure. Thank you. Hi, Vikaash. My first question is, given that you've had a good start to the year in terms of new business, how are you thinking about the target of 1.7 million that you had set out last quarter? Just a clarification if that target of 1.7 would also include 550 of pre-commitment that you signed this quarter. Then I have a follow-up.
Thank you, Kunal. The 1.7 million sq ft is, you know, new leases on existing operating portfolio. This was the breakup of the guidance. You know, apart from this, we have also assumed 2.1 million sq ft renewal and an additional 1.2 million sq ft pre-commitment. That's how the total of all of these three put together sums up to 5 million sq ft. 1.7 million sq ft is only on the operating portfolio. On a like-for-like basis, that translates to the 400 or 450 thousand sq ft we operated this quarter.
Got that. Essentially, I think we should take 0.4 of 1.7 as basically done in Q1.
That is correct. Just to add to your earlier question, as of now, we are maintaining a five million sq ft guidance with a split, but we do see markets, especially Bangalore, rebounding quite well. We'll revisit this next quarter to see if that guidance need to be updated.
Got that. The follow-up, Vikaash, is, I think Kavala said that there was an update on the work from home policy for the SEZ. Have you had a chance to think through what the implications could be for your assets?
Yeah, you know, Kunal, thank you for that. There are a couple of things here. One, obviously, you know, as we mentioned earlier, you know, the back to office trend has been gradual and encouraging. You know, within the numbers that we have laid out of about, let's say, 25% physical park population, you know, the back to office actually differs significantly or considerably between cities and assets. For example, Mumbai is already at 55%-60%, as we know from last quarter. Interestingly, Embassy TechVillage, with a large proportion of global captives, you know, we saw the park population up to 45% or higher.
You know, to answer your question, we have seen that the, you know, SEZ, primarily IT services companies, they have been slower on back to office compared to the global captives and also the tech product companies. We believe that, you know, as the current attrition concerns balance out, there will be more positive ramp-up on back to work by the IT services companies and, you know, we'll see more demand. You know, combined with that or, you know, associated with that is the SEZ work from home benefits. Given cities like Pune and Noida have already extended that benefit up to December. We've seen, you know, very slow ramp up of about 15% or less in Pune and Noida.
However, we believe the new notification mandating at least 50% back to office and an additional compliances for those companies who want continued work from home, we believe that should be a positive for, you know, occupiers who occupy X+ premises, which are primarily IT services companies. We'll have to wait and see, but we do think this will help the back to office ramp up, especially in properties like Pune and Noida.
Yeah. All right. Thank you so much.
Thanks, Kunal.
Thank you. We have next question from the line of Puneet with HSBC. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thank you so much. Congratulations on good comments there again. My first question is if you can give more color on what's happening on Manyata. We haven't seen even materially this time getting signed there, only 32,000 sq ft got signed this quarter. How should one think about the ramp up in Manyata? At what point do you think, you know, it will pick up materially?
Sure, Puneet. Do you have a follow-on question or a second question?
Yeah. The rest are more on, you know, financial front. If you look at NDCF for ETV, that seems to have fallen while NOI has gone up. Anything to read there? Second is, you know, the distribution part for EGL. There are now two distribution. One is dividend and second is the distribution number, which I presume is a combination of both interest and return of loan. If you can give the breakup between interest and return of loan and explain the policy behind it.
Sure, Puneet. Why don't I take your first question, and then I'll hand it over to Abhishek from our finance team to, you know, take your second question. You know, just to kind of lay out where we are today at Manyata, the last quarter occupancy was 88%, and the occupancy of Manyata this quarter is 87%. This compares to around mid-90s pre-pandemic. You know, while there's a lot that is, you know, currently going on at Manyata, you know, the one key reason for the drop in occupancy is because of one large exit of about one million sq ft, you know, of a legacy lease, which has a mark-to-market of, you know, over 150%.
Yeah.
Having said that, we have seen around 700,000 or 800,000 sq ft of those exits already factored in as of now, 700,000 . We also have an additional vacancy relating to the same lease coming up in the coming quarter. All in all, I would say, you know, in the coming quarter, we have about 400 thousand sq ft of additional exit, which has a mark-to-market of over 150%. At the same time, we have a pipeline of around the same quantum. Just to give you a flavor of the kind of occupiers we're talking to today, and Manyata has actually seen, you know, good incremental demand from a lot of existing and new occupiers, smaller in quantum to start with to factor for the immediate growth.
You know, we are now seeing it quickly translate into large, larger RFPs and pipelines, you know, as we think of future growth. The guys we're talking to now for the 200,000 sq ft pipeline, which I mentioned, which we're targeting for Q2, include, you know, an American-listed healthcare info tech firm, you know, setting up a new office. There's a Fortune 10 healthcare and insurance company, an existing client who's looking to take up a larger space at Manyata. We're also looking at an AI cloud data analytics player, which facilitates medical research, and then also digital transformation firm, you know, which does AI and automation.
If you see the kind of profile of occupiers that we have Manyata over the last two years has moved from, let's say, 36% of global captives to today, 50%. Our effort is to kind of see if we can take this higher. You know, on a like-for-like basis ETV, the global captive share will be significantly higher. You know, we remain pretty positive that Manyata is seeing good traction from the global captives who are really expanding. Manyata has already seen in-place rents increase from FY 2020, from the time of the pandemic to today, from INR 61- INR 66. We are realizing the mark-to-market. You know, the market rent today is anywhere between INR 95-INR 100. There's a huge potential.
The other trend I would say is, EGL and ETV, both of them have seen a strong momentum on leasing and are now almost 100% up. We believe that, you know, Manyata will now continue to see even more share of the traction given that those other two micro markets of CBD and ORR are, you know, really pull up on occupancy. Again, how does this translate into our numbers or into leasing? We are currently in advanced discussion with a global bank for 600,000 sq ft pre-commitment on one of the under construction blocks. Apart from that, we are seeing quite a lot of activity from existing and newer occupiers. We remain pretty encouraged on Manyata, and we estimate that by the end of this year, Manyata should move into early 90s in terms of occupancy.
The reason behind our enthusiasm on Manyata is because of the Hilton Hotels. It has really helped attract a lot of tenant attention and interest in Manyata. Of course, you're aware about the flyover. Also what will happen is as some of the older spaces come up, we are considering redevelopment of the existing 400,000-450,000 sq ft, which will incrementally result in 1.2 million sq ft total leasable area if we do go ahead with the 600,000 sq ft-700,000 sq ft incremental FAR. Manyata, we are focused more on NOI and how can we enhance overall value and NOI and of course distributions, and not necessarily just the occupancy number. The mark-to-markets, we've already seen the way Manyata mark-to-markets have been delivered over the last two years. So I think that I hope that gives you a little bit flavor of how Manyata is moving.
Yes. Two clarifications here.
We're putting in efforts to move it to more global captive kind of an occupier base.
Okay. Two questions related to this. You talked about nearly 90% occupancy by end of this year. Does that mean you capture, number one, in your leasing guidance, some bit of, you know, occupancy happening in Manyata? And second, deduction of 0.4 million sq ft from the total leasable area. Are both points counted in the 90%?
That's correct.
Okay. The denominator also goes down to some extent. Got it.
200,000 sq ft odd. That's correct. Yeah.
Abhishek, would you wanna take the second question?
Puneet, there are two questions for me.
Yeah.
One was relating to CTE NOI increasing.
NOI and NDCF falling.
NOI is not increasing and NDCF falling. I think I'll tell you actually there are three large reasons for that. One is because what has happened is, this SIPL block, JPNC Block Nine, that has got capitalized last year in March. This interest is now not getting capitalized, and it is getting hit to the NDCF, while it is not getting hit to the NOI. Second major reason is that, if you remember, till last year, what we were getting is rental support, which was directly going and increasing my NDCF, but it did not have any impact on NOI. From this year, it is getting routed through the revenue from operations because the rental support is over and rentals have started. This is increasing the NOI without having any impact on the NDCF.
The third reason is that, as this is the first quarter, we have paid all the property tax for the year. That is taking the NDCF down while having no major impact on the NOI. These are largely the three reasons. Other than that, there is normal movement in working capital, which also reduces the NDCF.
That's very clear.
Okay. The second part of your question was on GLSP, the loan that we had provided to GLSP, our investment entity.
Yeah
For acquisition of 300,000-odd sq ft and CAM business for the entire EGL park, so w hat has happened is during this quarter, we have received actually three components. First one is a dividend of around INR 40 crore. Second one is interest on the loan that we provided around INR 18.5 crore and t he third one is amortization of the debt that we have provided because we had some excess cash there, so which is a small number, INR 15 crore.
Okay.
Does it answer your question?
Yeah. Yes. On this amortization, is there a policy that you will continue to amortize INR 15 crore or you think this was more one-off case?
Actually, Puneet, what will happen is while interest will come every quarter.
Mm-hmm
This amortization of debt and dividend will depend on the cash flow and the profit that they have at their disposal. It will be dependent on whatever cash they have.
Understood. That's it. That's all from my side. Thank you so much.
Thank you, Puneet.
Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question from the line of Karan Khanna with Ambit Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thanks for the opportunity. Vikaash, my first question is, as you know, when you look at the leasing pipeline across Quadron Pune, Oxygen Noida, and Embassy One, can you give us some sense as to how you're looking at these assets, given occupancies are still below the portfolio occupancies as far as these assets are concerned?
Sure. Your second question, Karan?
Second, you know, on the expansion of one million sq ft M3 Block A at Embassy Manyata. We know that this is now expected to be delivered in December 2022 versus originally agreed to obtain the OC in December 2019 by Embassy Property Developments Private Limited. Consequently, can you give us any sense on specific reasons for the delay while acknowledging that EPDPL is paying rental compensation of around INR 57 million per month, which is lower than what can actually be generated. That's the second question.
Sure, Karan. You know, why don't I take the first and hand over to Ritwik for the second question? You know, Karan, on these three properties or, you know, Pune as a region, a couple of things. One, you know, and this would be, this would be true for both Pune and Oxygen, is that we have seen slower than, you know, average ramp up of back to work, especially given both these properties, all the three Pune properties as well as Oxygen, they cater to IT services, predominantly IT services players. That's the reason we have, while we see deal pipeline now kind of being generated, we've not seen, you know, it progressing to a stage where there are closures.
We think just on Pune itself, we think Hinjewadi is one of the most competitive office markets. It's got now good infrastructure in place. At INR 50 rent, it's pretty compelling. The quality that we've built both on existing and the new product in TechZone, we think it's a good market to have a ready product available. As and when the back to office ramp up speeds up, we think the IT services company will start activating the leasing requirements, especially given our ongoing conversation suggests that many of them have hired more people than they have office space for.
You know, I can kind of give you a flavor of six specific conversations we have had with our existing occupiers in Pune, where they said that if, you know, factoring for all the people that they already have have hired, they need additional 400,000 sq ft. I think it's just that there's. You know, we don't see there's a trigger or an urgency for the occupier. You know, as the back to office and as well as the recent SEZ work from home policy of 50%, we hope we'll wait and see if that helps to kickstart or speed up the pipeline and the lead conversion. That's on Pune. We admit and we agree that it has been slow.
On Oxygen, you know, again, it's similar. You know, the back to office has been slow in SEZ, specifically in Noida. Again, here we're seeing, you know, around 15%-ish levels of back to office. While we have renewed with existing occupiers, we're seeing, you know, here we are seeing again very slow momentum on lease pipeline converting into deals. Interestingly, both in Pune and in Noida, we have recently seen 350,000 sq ft each of renewals with existing IT services players at premium to market rents of about 15%. You know, that's an interesting trend where, you know, pipeline has been slow to convert into deals.
Existing IT services companies, despite the 15% low occupancy, physical occupancy, have renewed end of tenure leases with five-year commitments and at premium to market. We are hopeful that the pipeline will pick up, and we are having, you know, a lot of conversations on ground and flavor of how, you know, occupiers are conducting the site visits and thinking about space. It's waiting for a trigger. Lastly, on Embassy One, you know, the occupancy currently, we are hopeful to kind of move it higher next quarter, for the simple reason that we are in advanced discussions for about 40,000 sq ft with three firms. One is a legal firm, one is an electronic and automotive firm's front office, and one is a biotech firm.
All of these leases, lease discussions in advanced stages. With 40,000 sq ft additional, that moves Embassy One's occupancy to 70%, to about 70%. That's our target for the coming quarter. Interestingly, a lot of the demand is right now in the north moving to Manyata. You know, we are seeing an interesting play of, again, you know, occupiers trying to take up space in larger business parks where there are expansion optionality. I hope that answers your question because we moved to the M3.
Sure. Just a follow-up to that. In 1Q, you've seen 367,000 sq ft renewal at Embassy Quadron in Pune and 345,000 sq ft renewal at Embassy Oxygen in Noida, which we believe the market rentals are, or the in-place rentals are higher than the market rentals here. Despite that, you've managed to get a 9% renewal spread on the 850,000 sq ft which you've achieved in 1Q. Just curious to know what is driving these spreads?
Can you just repeat the last part of it, please?
Yeah. I was asking, you know, despite your in-place rentals being higher than the market rentals, you've still managed to close 9% higher renewals spread on the 850,000 sq ft of area which was achieved in first quarter. I just wanted to understand what's driving these higher spreads because your market rentals, your in-place rentals were higher than the market rentals for both Quadron, Pune and the other one in Noida.
Yes. Current couple of Mumbai renewals that we did, those in-place rents were higher than the market, and we brought them back to market. To answer your question another way, on all the renewals of 850,000 sq ft that we did, we did all of those renewals at 10% higher spreads to market rents, and also similar levels of 9% to in-place rents. The in-place rents for some of the Mumbai properties, especially Express Towers, which also had an earlier fitted out component and a club deals, as we renewed those earlier leases to newer occupiers, you know, it got again, the rents were brought back to what the market today is at. Does that help answer your question?
Overall, 850,000 sq ft renewals were still done at a 10% spread, or, you know, 10% higher spread to the market rents.
Sure. Thanks.
And, and-
That answers the question.
Yeah. Karan, on M3, I think just on Block A, look, I think when we did the deal, it, and we still obviously think that the deal makes complete sense given it's Manyata and given sort of we're always looking to consolidate area within the park. On the one million sq ft of Block A, it was originally scheduled to be completed by December 2019, but then there were obviously delays. The pandemic didn't help. I think right now we are expecting to receive the occupancy certificate by December 2022. You know, construction's effectively completed at this point. You know, we put out a note on page 22 of our supplemental deck that sort of talks about sort of what the net receivable is in Block A and in Block B.
Looking at roughly INR 170 million receivable that we think is recoverable on Block A. I think at this point in time, you know, we are really sort of progressing sort of as planned now that the pandemic has abated. I think we feel fairly good about sort of the way the projects are going.
Sure. Good. Thank you. That's it from my end. Thank you and all the best.
Thank you.
Thanks, Karan.
Thank you. We have next question from the line of Mohit Agrawal with IIFL. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Thanks and congratulations on great set of leasing numbers. My first question is on your under construction or your development pipeline. Now, this year we are completing about 2.7 million sq ft of assets and you have given a pre-leasing target of about 1.2 million sq ft. Now, half of it is, you know, done, which is great, but that pertains to FY 2025, like ETV assets. Just trying to get your thoughts on how do we see this 2.7 million sq ft coming, and, you know, where do we see the leasing of this 2.7 million sq ft by the end of this year?
Sure. Thanks, Mohit. You know, a couple of things. One, I think we feel pretty good about the fact that we're, you know, this much quantum under construction. In fact, we are looking to see if we can bring forward some more of the post-development and put them in, you know, the under construction bucket. You know, just to kind of, you know, answer your question, the pre-commitment activity levels has just picked up since last quarter, right? You know, through the pandemic, of course, the occupiers were not looking to make active leasing decisions, especially for, from a medium term perspective, right? They're not looking to, firm up and commit to capital costs. As we've seen the demand or inquiries, RFPs pick up under construction, we are seeing increased momentum.
Of course, the best micro markets and properties, you know, are seeing the highest traction. ETV remains one of the best micro markets in the country today, not just in Bengaluru, and we've done a pre-lease there. Of course that under construction is scheduled for delivery after two or three years. Now, let me give you a flavor of how the demand is panning out on all of our under construction. ETV, of course, apart from what we've already done, we have multiple RFPs chasing the balance 1.5 million sq ft. Given, to your point, it is three years later the supply comes in of the delivery, we are actually holding on to rents and seeing if we can get a really large occupier at the rents we'd like them to be at.
We are currently in discussions for two large one million sq ft RFPs each at ETV. Manyata actually has now started seeing pickup in demand, you know, for the deliveries, as you mentioned, one million sq ft get delivered this year, and 0.6 million sq ft now get delivered after two or three years. Here we're in advanced discussions with a, you know, large bank, but that is for large Asian bank, but that is for the 0.6 million sq ft, which comes up in some time in 2023, 2024. For the one million sq ft which Ritwik just mentioned comes up this year. We are still in early stages of discussions, but we feel very good about having a ready or an almost ready product in a market like Bangalore and in a office campus like Manyata.
Hopefully we'll be able to translate some of the discussions that we have, early stage discussions into leases. Pune I mentioned earlier, you know, Hudson and Daniels, the nine lakh sq ft comes up again later this year. While we're on track for delivery, I think pipeline here is slow. While we'll be the only developer/landlord having both SEZ and non-SEZ offering in Hinjewadi, and we have a dominant player in that micro market. I think we'll have to wait till the back to office and the leasing inquiries in Pune pick up. Pune is expected to take two to three quarters at least, Mohit. Last year Noida, that comes up only mid next year. Again, there we are in initial discussions with one of the largest tech companies for the entire 700,000 sq ft.
Again, some of these lease discussions, you know, the speed of progress depends upon the back to office. In summary, this year we have one million sq ft at Manyata, early stage discussions. You know, we're hopeful that we can, you know, convert leases by the end of this financial year. Again, TechZone in Pune, that's expected to take some time, although delivery is on schedule.
Sure. Perfect. My second question is on, you know, going back to that SEZ question, asked earlier. Now, you did answer from a physical occupancy perspective, the 50% work from home. But does that does anything changes, you know, from a leasing from a direct leasing perspective? What I mean is that, were you facing hurdles in, let's say, your Pune, Noida parks due to, you know, SEZ restrictions? And do you think the new draft kind of addresses those and probably that could help in leasing those assets faster?
Yeah, Mohit, that's actually a pretty good point. Let me kind of, you know, dive into this in two or three buckets. One, you know, currently about 60% of our completed area is SEZ. As you know, the SEZ regulations are being phased out. What we're consistently seeing is we're seeing more of the occupiers of the high-end value chain, you know. Mostly by that I mean global captives of tech product companies who are looking to take up space in spaces in large office parks of the quality that we offer, the large scale business ecosystems. To kind of answer your question, the demand has moved from, let's say, a 50-50 SEZ, non-SEZ, you know, five years back, to predominantly non-SEZ today.
Again, it's not a function of SEZ or non-SEZ, it's a function of the kind of occupiers looking to take up space with us. Given it is by those occupiers who are high up the value chain, the sensitivity to rent is continuously reducing. The real estate decisions are more influenced by flexibility needs of operations. With the sunset clause, most of them are preferring non-SEZ space. What we have done is a couple of things. One, all of our new development, whether it is Embassy TechZone, the nine lakh sq ft, which was originally an SEZ, as well Oxygen, the 0.7 million sq ft, that was an SEZ. We have initiated a conversion into non-SEZ and offering that as non-SEZ product.
The ETV 2 million sq ft and the proposed developments, new development at Manyata, I mentioned about the redevelopment plan. All of them are proposed to be non-SEZ. All new projects are moving to non-SEZ. Having said that, the current policy directives, the first draft has been encouraging. They have permitted coexistence of SEZ, non-SEZ, so the contiguity requirement is no longer required once it gets notified. However, there are a couple of additional asks which the industry has, you know, and this impacts the entire industry, not just us, is that our ask or request is for to allow floor by floor denotification, right? Because we have existing occupiers with remaining lease tenures on current SEZ buildings who'd like to continue to be SEZ.
I think it's more operational, and we're hopeful that the regulations are notified factoring this aspect on floor by floor denotification, not just building by building. With that, it becomes fairly easy. The request is to make it on a declaration, self-declaration basis, so it's not cumbersome. That is where I think the industry and we will move to. This obviously is expected to take a quarter or two, you know, it's anyone's guess.
Yeah. Yeah, sure. The last one, you know, is on your debt numbers. You know, at 27% net debt to GAV, they're pretty comfortable. The headroom is still 49%. But obviously, you know, one would not want to go up to that level. Just, you know, trying to understand at what level, you know, you'd be comfortable and what level you'd be worried. Around 30%-35% net debt to GAV is where you'll be comfortable to go to that level?
Mohit, this is Abhishek. I will start the question, and then if Vikaash or Ritwik has anything to add, they can add. See, as of today, we see we are lowly levered at 27%. We have already sought approval to go up to 35% where we will be comfortable. That is the max we can go. But as per regulation, we could go to 49%. To answer your question, 35% is where we are comfortable at max.
Yeah. Mohit, I think, look, let me sort of break this down in another way, right? In this environment and in this rising interest rate environment, we are actually sort of, you know, far more focused on making sure our balance sheet is absolutely pristine.
At 27%, we're more than comfortable at this point, right? I mean, at the end of the day, you know, people are, you know, from next week people think it's maybe a 75 basis points hike in the Fed, the Fed rate. I think we are looking at clearly sort of, you know, rates rising at a pretty dramatic pace over the next sort of few quarters. The last thing we want to happen to us is be caught offside with sort of debt that we need to effectively then have a tough time refinancing or thinking about paying down. Whether it's construction finance or even, you know, and I think about future growth. I think, you know, there's a lot of sort of focus on, you know, what we buy, when we buy.
Fundamentally, you know, interest cost is a big component of sort of, you know, the entire drop down into distributions, and we wanna be very cognizant of that in this environment. I think you're seeing that across the board, right? I mean, just if you look, I mean, or if you work for, you know, banks or asset managers, and you see that when effectively, you know, debt refinancings and equity underwritings and everything has fallen off quite dramatically. We're pretty comfortable sort of at the levels we currently are. You know, the first, you know, to Vikaash's point of all the development that's out there, we wanna make sure that we deliver this on time. That's priority number one.
Number two, if the markets do open up, you know, effectively to, you know, to fund the suite of growth and to make sure that we still keep a clean balance sheet, we look at it. We wanna be very careful at this stage. This is a volatile environment.
Sure. Theoretically, you could go up to 35%.
Yes.
Correct?
What we are saying, Mohit, is that we will be comfortable up to 35%.
35. Okay.
We are very much comfortable at 27%.
Okay, great. Thank you. That's all from my side.
Thank you, Mohit.
Thank you. We have next question from the line of Poonam Joshi with Nirmal Bang. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Congratulations to the management for the good set of numbers. I want an idea on how the expiry, the lease expiry, which, you know, the company is going to witness in this year. It will have an impact of approximately 8% on the revenue front. How the company is renewing that thing in this year? Some color on the leasing spread also. Thank you. Hello?
Thanks, Poonam. Let me take that. You know, if I could guide you, well, I'll detail it out. If I could guide you to slide 27 of our deck.
Mm-hmm.
You know, as we laid down last quarter, our total expiries for FY 2023 is roughly about 3.1 million sq ft. You know, you see the colored pie on the right-hand side. What we've been able to do last quarter is of that 3.1 million sq ft, we indicated that about 1.8 million sq ft will be renewed. Of that, we've already completed 0.8 million sq ft renewal at 9% mark-to-market rent, so 9% higher than lease rent. The remaining 1 million sq ft, we have indicated are likely renewed. Now, some of these leases you'll appreciate do not come up for renewal in this quarter. Many of the leases come up over the course of this full year. In fact, a large component comes up in the end week of March.
you know, as these come up, we have indicated that we believe one million sq ft will be likely renewed, and there's a 26% mark-to-market on that. At the same time, we did indicate in our guidance last quarter that the balance 1.3 million sq ft, so 3.1 minus 1.8 million of renewals, the balance 1.3 million sq ft are likely exits. Now again, we have visibility on these, and we've already seen about 0.5 million sq ft exits this quarter. There is a potential of 50% mark-to-market on that, and the balance we expect to be exits over the course of this full year, financial year, 0.8 million sq ft.
Again, of the 0.8 million sq ft, roughly 0.4 million sq ft is in Manyata, where we mentioned there's about over 150% mark-to-market lead opportunity. I also indicated that we are in advanced discussions for around 400,000 sq ft of leases in Manyata, which we're targeting to convert in Q2. Kind of to sum up all the numbers that I mentioned, you know, we think we are on target on our lease expiry renewals and exits. Exits obviously provide us an opportunity of mark-to-market and all our exits have more than 50% mark-to-market on a combined basis. We believe we'll be able to backfill a significant chunk of it. If you think about it, 1.3 million sq ft is the total exits for this year.
We have laid out a new leasing guidance, you know, new fresh leasing guidance of 1.7. We believe we'll be able to backfill all the exits, you know, on an overall basis and, you know, achieve a net positive leasing number. I hope that addresses your question, Poonam.
Yeah, it was helpful. Just a follow-up question on this. Basically we had the pre-commitment leases to the leasable area, approximately 5.5 at Embassy TechVillage. I also wanted to understand what is the in place rentals you got there? At what rent have you leased out that area?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Poonam, while we've refrained from disclosing exact terms for obvious reasons on our leases. What I can confirm is this was at underwritten rents, which we had underwritten at the time of the ETV deal in December 2020. This was part of the growth option, so we had underwritten the rents considering that.
Okay. I understood. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you, sir. We have next question from the line of Saurabh Kumar with JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Hi. Just two questions. One is, I'm not sure if this has been answered. If you net out the JP Morgan, you know, adjustment to the NOI, the NOI will be flat quarter-over-quarter. With our understanding, we're correct? The office NOI will be flat quarter-over-quarter.
However, there is an increase in the hotel ramp-up and the new hotel that we launched at Manyata, that also is doing very good. There is an NOI, positive NOI, from these hotels, all the three hotels, which is compared to a drag in the last quarter.
Yeah, that I understand. The office NOI would have been flat, right? I know that you've disclosed this movement in NOI.
Yes. Yes.
Okay. Secondly, this, I'm sorry, I missed out this. The INR 1,200 crore quarter-on-quarter debt increase, what does that relate to?
If you see the debt has increased by INR 1,200 crores, where we have taken INR 9,400 crores to fund the GLSP, which is our investment entity.
INR 940 crores.
INR 940 crores. The balance is for our CapEx purpose. Sort of just to kind of clarify that again, the INR 1,200 crores of increase, the debt increase you see is mainly towards the add-on acquisition, GLSP, the investment entity for which we gave the loan to GLSP. We did a five-year fixed bond for that. The balance is just to fund the CapEx, ongoing CapEx.
Okay. Understand. Just one last question. If I look at your P&L statement, Vinu, if you look at the profit plus depreciation numbers, there seems to be an adjustment of about INR 55 odd crores between your profit plus depreciation and your dividend. I think your interest capitalization is not there. What would be the other adjustment there?
Saurabh, I didn't quite get your question.
Maybe I'll take it offline. I'll take it offline.
Offline?
Yeah.
Okay. If you are looking at how the PAT is going towards the end of CF, then I can tell you. Otherwise, we can take it offline.
Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question. I'd now like to turn the conference back to Mr. Abhishek Agarwal for any closing comments. Over to you, sir.
Thank you, operator. Thank you so much for joining us on today's call and for your great questions. The data points covered today can be found on our website and in the published materials, and we are always happy to engage further if any additional clarifications are required. Good evening. Thank you.
Thank you very much, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of Embassy REIT, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining with us, and you may now disconnect your lines.