Good evening, everyone. A very warm welcome to all for Embassy REIT's Third Quarter FY 2023 Earnings Conference Call. Currently, all participants are in listen-only mode. Our speakers will address your questions at the end of 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. Sir, you may begin now.
Thank you, operator. Welcome to the Q3 FY 2023 Earnings Call for Embassy REIT. Embassy REIT released its financial results for the quarter and nine-month period ended December 31st, 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 procedures. 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. Joining me today are Vikaash Khadloya, the CEO, Abhishek S. Agarwal, 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, thank you for joining us today to review our Q3 results. We are pleased to report another robust quarter of business performance and a continued positive outlook for India office market. We signed a total of 1 million sq ft leases, improved our same-store occupancy to 88%, generated healthy 13% NOI growth, announced 15th consecutive quarter of 100% distributions, and remain on track with our full year guidance. Additionally, we unlocked further growth in Bangalore at our Embassy TechVillage property by launching a new 410,000 sq ft office block at a highly accretive 24% yield. Our active development pipeline now totals 6.6 million sq ft and sets us up to deliver an incremental INR 8 billion annual NOI upon stabilization at an attractive 24% yield.
Another quarter of resilient business activity and a clear pathway towards accelerating growth, which we are well-placed to finance, given our low 27% leverage, competitive debt costs, and triple A stable rated fortress balance sheet. Even amidst a highly volatile global macro environment, India continues to attract more and more global companies to set up and grow their offshore captive centers. Morgan Stanley, in its recently published report, Why This Is India's Decade, has highlighted offshoring as one of the key mega trends which will continue to fuel India's growth. The dual drivers for this phenomenon are structural, mainly India's abundant STEM talent and the cost efficiency offered by India's gateway cities relative to more expensive and less scalable markets globally. As we have highlighted previously, these global captives continue to pursue premium quality, wellness-focused properties to attract and retain talent and to grow their presence in India.
Our year-to-date leasing performance, our highly accretive active developments, and our resilient distributions demonstrate our continued strong conviction in the long-term growth opportunity offered by India office. Let me now update you on our leasing performance. During Q3, we leased a total of 1 million sq ft across 19 deals and added seven new occupiers across healthcare, financial services, and tech firms. We achieved robust new leasing of 0.5 million sq ft at impressive 5% premium to market rents. Additionally, we renewed another 0.5 million sq ft leases at 21% renewal spreads, including 0.4 million sq ft of early renewals by four large multinationals. We also secured 13% rent escalations on 2.1 million sq ft, which further contributes to our NOI growth.
Physical attendance in our properties also continued its upward growth trajectory and stood at around 46% last week, a 30% uptick compared to last quarter, majorly led by banks and global captives. Bengaluru continues to drive demand with the occupancy of Embassy Manyata now touching 90% and a strong deal pipeline for both Embassy Manyata and Embassy TechVillage, reflecting continued strong demand from global captives. Pune witnessed early signs of demand pickup with 152,000 sq ft new leases in Q3, including by an American healthcare major. With this, our Q3 occupancy stood at 86%, and our same-store occupancy rebounded to 88%.
Our active deal pipeline of 850,000 sq ft sets us on the path to pre-COVID occupancy levels of 90s in the next few quarters. Our strategy of attracting higher growth occupiers has helped us diversify occupier concentration, deliver above market rents, and more importantly, embed growth into our portfolio. For instance, in the last 18 months, we added an impressive 52 new occupiers across sectors such as cloud infrastructure, cybersecurity, fintech, healthcare tech, and renewables. These deals were across 1.4 million sq ft and at 4% premium to market rents. Notably, based on our on-ground discussions, around half of these occupiers are already looking to grow their India footprint, which will further aid our new leasing. On the SEZ front, the industry is currently awaiting further regulatory clarity around the proposed DESH Bill.
Excluding our 3.3 million sq ft SEZ vacancy, our Q3 same-store occupancy would be at even higher levels of around 97%. An enabling regulatory framework around denotification and flexibility of usage of existing SEZs will boost demand for such spaces and further drive leasing traction. An update on our ESG program. ESG remains a core pillar of our strategy, our sustainability-focused buildings continue to receive recognition from globally renowned organizations. Our operational portfolio was awarded nine Sword of Honour by the British Safety Council, acknowledging the best-in-class safety and wellness aspects of our buildings. In addition, we are proud to report that we have been recognized as the world's largest USGBC LEED Platinum-certified office portfolio. We continue to progress on our three-year ESG roadmap, supported by our INR 3 billion committed investments.
We remain focused on reducing our carbon footprint through green initiatives such as our 20-megawatt solar rooftop project. We are progressing well on our 75/25 renewable program. That is our commitment to achieve 75% renewable energy usage across our properties by FY2025. Our team recently launched a dedicated microsite to provide details on our ESG program. We encourage you to visit the same. Finally, moving to the outlook for India office. 2022 was a resurgent year for India office, with total absorption of around 55 million sq ft, closer to pre-pandemic highs. While globally there may be an increased caution around office demand, the long-term fundamentals of India office remain strong as ever. Apart from banks and financial services captives, which continue to drive demand, many global retailers, insurers, and healthcare majors are now setting up their India offices.
Increased focus on cost and efficiencies by global corporates is likely to further accelerate this India offshoring trend, disproportionately to the benefit of institutional landlords like us. The supply of quality office stock continues to consolidate towards fewer and larger institutional quality landlords who are well-funded to invest in sustainable growth. A combination of cost inflation and rising interest rates is likely to increase the replacement value of properties, thereby impacting supply and driving rent growth in the medium term. As you may recall, we had given a 5 million sq ft total leasing guidance for FY23, which was meaningfully above our pre-pandemic five-year average of 3.3 million sq ft.
We are happy to report that year to date, we have already leased 4.4 million sq ft, achieving around 90% of our annual guidance despite Q3 traditionally being a seasonally slow quarter. Notably, we are tracking ahead on both our fresh leasing and pre-leasing guidance, and our active deal pipeline remains robust, which will further accelerate our NOI growth. Let me now hand over to Ritwik to expand further on our growth initiatives.
Thanks, Vikaash. Hello, everyone. Our key growth initiatives for Q3 include: We delivered a new 900,000 sq ft block at Embassy TechZone in Pune. We've launched an additional 410,000 sq ft new office building at Embassy TechVillage in Bengaluru. We've accelerated development of our 6.6 million sq ft of active growth pipeline, with approximately 90% concentrated in Bengaluru, which is India's best performing office market. We continue working on the non-binding offers to acquire the 7.1 million sq ft of sponsor assets in Chennai and Bengaluru. First, an update on the development portfolio. At Embassy Manyata, we're developing 3.5 million sq ft across five blocks. The 1 million sq ft N3 Block A is nearing completion, and we expect to receive the occupancy certificate in Q4.
We're seeing good lease, leasing traction with three deals in active discussions. Further, we've seen encouraging progress on obtaining the Transferable Development Rights, or TDRs, and other statutory approvals that we need for the 600,000 sq ft N3 Block B. This block has already been pre-leased to ANZ Bank and superstructure work is underway. Our recently launched new builds across the 700,000 sq ft L4 block and the 1.2 million sq ft D1 and D2 redevelopment blocks are progressing well, and we are witnessing early traction from global banking, cloud computing, and other tech players. At Embassy TechVillage, we're developing our 1.9 million sq ft Block 8, of which 550,000 sq ft has already been pre-leased to JP Morgan.
We continue to see surging demand for the balance. We've always been optimistic about the leasing dynamics of ETV, in particular, and Outer Ring Road, the Outer Ring Road micro market in general. To that end, we're launching another 410,000 sq ft block named Helenium by unlocking the available FAR potential at ETV. This new block is an addition to ETV's development potential that we underwrote at the time of its acquisition. This project is expected to generate a highly accretive yield on cost of approximately 24%. Also, in Q3, we received the occupancy certificate for the Hudson and Ganges blocks, the 900,000 sq ft blocks in Embassy Tech Zone, Pune, and the 700,000 sq ft Tower 1 at Embassy Oxygen in Noida, which is also nearing completion.
To summarize, our total development pipeline now stand at 6.6 million sq ft. Over 90% of this growth sits in Embassy Manyata and ETV in Bengaluru. Our reasons for concentrating development in our best parks in Bengaluru is simple. Bengaluru is the Indian city which leads global occupier demand, and the development economics in two of India's best business parks, which we own, are simply too attractive to ignore. With INR 30 billion of total committed CapEx, of which INR 21 billion is spending as of Q3, these 6.6 million sq ft of projects are expected to deliver approximately INR 8 billion of annual NOI upon stabilization. These projects set us up for impressive 24% yield on cost, and they validate our strategy to accelerate our growth pipeline. Next, an update on our hotels and our total business system.
Our four operating hotels continued their marked rebound in Q3 with 47% occupancy, a 15% quarter-on-quarter ADR growth, and a year-to-date EBITDA of INR 704 million. This performance is significantly better than what we initially guided to. We've always believed that our hotel business complements our office offering perfectly, and that it will continue to positively reflect in our leasing and our rents over the long term. We expect this to be no different as we develop the 518 key dual-branded Hilton hotels at ETV. The ORR market where ETV is located is underserved with only approximately 1,400 rooms, serving over 50 million sq ft of office space. Additionally, we continue to provide a total business ecosystem experience to our occupiers by constantly upgrading our properties with an eye on occupiers' future needs.
Our 200,000 sq ft of refurbishment of Block K at Embassy Manyata is nearing completion and will enhance the leasable area of this block by 18%. Additionally, we look forward to the upcoming launch of the NXT Retail Plaza at Embassy Manyata. This is an 85,000 sq ft F&B hub that will further boost employee experience as well as widen Embassy Manyata's competitive moat. Finally, an update on our acquisitions. We've made significant progress in our discussions with Embassy's sponsor and other stakeholders to acquire the two properties in Bangalore and Chennai, which total 7.1 million sq ft. This includes the 5 million sq ft of Embassy Splendid TechZone business park in Pallavaram, Chennai, and the 2.1 million sq ft Embassy Business Hub property in Yelahanka in North Bangalore.
Both properties are strategically located in fast-growing micro markets and are anchored by renowned global occupiers in banking, financial services, healthcare tech, and the IT services sectors. Of the 7.1 million sq ft, 2.1 million sq ft is completed or nearing completion with 91% of committed occupancy, which provides us with stable cash flow visibility. Of the balanced 5 million sq ft, construction is underway for 3 million sq ft, which aids further growth. The potential acquisition will account for less than 4% of the REIT's current GAV and remains subject to ongoing diligence, negotiations, funding, and requisite approvals. We're also evaluating certain other acquisition opportunities from third parties. We're focused on prudently financing potential acquisitions through an optimal mix of debt and equity, we're closely monitoring the challenging financial markets for appropriate transaction windows.
We remain committed to ensure that all our growth initiatives deliver value to our unit holders, as we've demonstrated by our earlier ETV acquisition, which has outperformed our underwriting on numerous metrics. Over now to Abhishek for the financial updates.
Thanks, Ritwik. Good evening, everyone. Let me take you through the key financial highlights for Q3. We grew net operating income by 13% year-on-year to INR 7,049 million with operating margins of 81%. We announced distributions of INR 5,033 million, or INR 5.31 per unit, with a 100% payout ratio. We continue to maintain our strong balance sheet with 27% low leverage and attractive 7.2% debt cost. Let me take you through the details. First, an update on our Q3 financial year 2023 income performance. Revenue from operations grew by 17% year-on-year to INR 8,654 million.
This was mainly driven by our new lease up at higher rents, contractual rent escalations, delivery of our 1.1 million sq ft JP Morgan campus at ETV, and ramp-up of our hotel business. This was partially offset by the impact of exits in our office portfolio over the last year. Net operating income and EBITDA grew by 13% and 14% year-on-year respectively. This was primarily driven by an increase in the revenue from operations, partially offset by the increased hotel operating expenses corresponding to our hotel business ramp-up. Our overall NOI and EBITDA margins stood at 81% and 80% respectively, and continue to be the best in class. Our NOI margins consistently remain around 86% for the commercial office segment, demonstrating its scale and efficiency. Net distributable cash flows stood at INR 5,045 million, up 2% year-on-year.
The year-on-year increase in our NOI and EBITDA contributed positively to our NDCF, which was primarily offset by an increase in our interest costs. These incremental interest costs mainly related to the debt expense of our recently delivered buildings, as well as the INR 46 billion coupon-bearing debt raised to refinance our earlier ZCBs. Earlier today, our board of directors declared Q3 distributions of INR 5,033 million, or INR 5.31 per unit, representing a 100% payout ratio. This brings our YTD distributions to INR 15.3 billion or INR 16.1 per unit. In the 15 quarters since our listing, we have now cumulatively distributed over INR 73 billion. Moving to our balance sheet updates.
We continue to maintain our fortress balance sheet with 27% low leverage, attractive 7.2% debt cost, triple A stable credit rating, and a INR 108 billion pro forma debt headroom to finance growth. Our debt strategy remains focused on active capital management and interest cost optimization by locking in fixed rates given the inflationary environment. Over the last three quarters, we have cumulatively refinanced or renegotiated over INR 42 billion debt at 120 basis points spread. As a result of this and our earlier refinancing, 65% of our INR 139 billion debt book carries a fixed rate of 6.7% for an average maturity of two years. Additionally, 27% of our debt carries a yearly reset date, and the interest rate is fixed for the next seven months on an average.
We are in advanced discussions for refinancing an additional INR 16 billion floating rate debt and are targeting around 45 basis points positive spreads. Given our access to various debt capital pools across mutual funds, insurers, FPIs, banks, and NBFCs, we are well-placed to refinance any upcoming debt maturities at best-in-class industry rates. In line with our ESG commitments, I am happy to report that our sustainable finance portfolio has now grown to INR 39 billion, representing 28% of our total debt book, which is one of the best in the industry. Lastly, an update on our financial year 2023 guidance. As a recap, during April 2022, we had provided our full year guidance with a midpoint NOI of INR 27,030 million and a midpoint DPU of INR 21.7 per unit, both within a range of +/-5%.
This guidance implies a year-on-year increase of 9% in NOI and an in-line DPU considering the midpoint guidance. On a like-to-like basis, post factoring the impact of our November 2021 ZCB refinancing, this DPU guidance was also 9% higher year-on-year, reflecting the efficient flow through of our NOI to distributions. Based on our YTD performance, I am pleased to reconfirm this guidance. There has been a positive rebound in office leasing as well as hotel business, both of which are currently tracking at or ahead our estimates. On the other hand, we expect interest costs to be higher than our initial assumptions, given the rapid rise in rates over the last three quarters.
While rising interest rates have severely impacted the global redistribution and resulted in widespread guidance downgrades, we are happy to report that the positive operational levers of our NOI have been able to largely mitigate the increase in interest costs. Looking beyond financial year 23, our new lease-up contractual rent escalations, mark-to-mark rent growth, and scheduled deliveries will act as significant growth levers, thereby accelerating our growth to the benefit of our unit holders. Over to Vikaash for his concluding remarks.
Thank you, Abhishek. We continue to deliver consistently and are moving forward on our growth trajectory. On the business front, Q3 was another strong quarter with 1 million sq ft leasing, an uptick in our same- store occupancy to 88%. With 4.4 million sq ft leases already signed year-to-date and a promising 850,000 sq ft pipeline, we are well-positioned to deliver on our annual guidance. We continue to unlock value as demonstrated by the FAR enhancement projects across Embassy Manyata and ETV, which will add 1.2 million sq ft to our total leasable area at highly accretive 22% yield. We remain focused on our 6.6 million sq ft development growth investments estimated to add around INR 8 billion to our NOI upon stabilization.
On the capital markets front, amid significant declines in global REIT stocks, Indian office REITs have been resilient and in fact, significantly outshine their global peers. This was largely driven by the continued offshoring demand, impressive leasing spreads, development growth at attractive yields, and low leverage of Indian REITs. Given wider understanding of the yield plus growth total return story, combined with our consistent 15 quarters of business delivery, Embassy REIT provides one of the best risk - reward profile. Our unitholder register continues to expand with our retail base increasing around 18x since listing to over 70,000 investors. We continue to focus on growing our NOI and distribution by developing and acquiring quality properties and delivering long-term value to our unitholders. With this, let's now move to Q&A, please.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. We would also request participants to restrict their questions to two per participant. If you have a follow-up question, please rejoin the queue. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Kunal Tayal from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Sure. Thank you. Hi, Vikaash, my first question is around the leasing intensity.
Your line has been unmuted. Please proceed with your question.
I hope you can hear me. I'm unmuted.
Yes.
Okay, great.
I'm now hearing you.
Awesome. Vikaash, hi. My first question was around the leasing intensity for corporates. You know, there's been this news flow around layoffs in the tech sector, I very well understand that, you know, the direct impact on India or the plans for direct layoffs in India could be quite less. There's the long-term offshoring trend as well. I was just wondering if, you know, this kind of news flow might be enough for corporates to start thinking about pushing out new lease plans for 6-12 months. Is that something that you have seen or, you know, does it continue to be unchanged versus three, six months back? The second question is around DESH policy. Any clarity as to when that could get done?
You know, we've seen it get pushed twice over, and I was just thinking about the 97% occupancy ex of your SEZ spaces and wondering if, you know, policy clarity could become a bottleneck to leasing next year. Thank you.
Thank you, Kunal. Just let me take the first question. On leasing, there are a couple of interesting things that's happening right now. One, obviously we are hearing the overall macro commentary globally and a bit in India as well on layoffs. You know, I would just like to state, you know, that employment or recession trends are cyclical, whereas the talent and cost advantage that India has is structural. I think that's a huge advantage we have. What we are seeing in India, specifically on the workforce, you know, there's comparatively limited and concentrated. This is the layoffs are concentrated to a few pockets. The elimination of roles is happening in fewer areas, but companies continue to hire in other strategic areas, including R&D, and we are seeing a lot of that.
You know, in general, I would say that we are seeing a couple of trends. One, demand continues to be led by global captives. We do think that large deals, 800,000 sq ft to 1 million sq ft plus, we will see increased caution and hence decision making may be slow over the next two quarters. We continue to see robust deal pipeline and momentum. If you also look at our, you know, advanced leasing pipeline that we've indicated of 850,000 sq ft for Q4, you'd see that the smaller and mid-sized requirements, we're continuing to see momentum going. We do think that large deals will slow down for the next two quarters pick up in the second half of this calendar year.
The reason is simply that the global corporates right now are reevaluating their strategy and, you know, they are firming up the decision on overall cost optimization measures given the macro uncertainty. Once they arrive at a decision, I think the India cost advantage will stand in tough contrast and more work will come to India. We are firm believers of that. We've seen that in the past. We continue to believe in that. I think we are well positioned to continue to focus on the smaller and mid-sized requirements till we see the large the momentum on the large requirements. Interestingly, even within the deals that we're seeing, we are seeing that the geographical mix is expanding.
Besides just U.S. banks and U.S. captives, we are now seeing many European and Australian banks setting up and expanding offices in India. We have done a couple of deals in this quarter and the previous quarters. We are also seeing newer sectors of global captives setting up shops or expanding. For example, apart from banks and financial services, we are now seeing a lot of retailers, insurers, and healthcare majors setting up their R&D centers, and a lot of those examples as well. I think the key is to be nimble and flexible in the solutions, and we think that we'll continue to see demand momentum. As we for the larger deals, we'll see that pick up only in second half of this calendar year. That's on the leasing trend.
Coming to DESH policy, I think there are two things here. One, you know, the industry as a whole is awaiting clarity on the DESH policy, where the ask simply is to provide flexibility, especially on the startup floor-by-floor denotification. I think it's an industry-wide issue. You know, Kunal, my personal view is we may see one or two quarters before there's a final resolution to this. Of course, there's been a lot of advocacy by the industry participants on this. In the meantime, the way we have approached this, given it's an external factor, is in a two or three-prong strategy. One, you know, we are full up on our occupancy, as you mentioned, 97%, excluding the SEZ vacancy.
All the new developments we are doing, we have converted or planned as non-SEZ, including all the developments that are coming up later half of this year. We deliver about 1.7 million sq ft in the next two quarters. All of that is planned as non-SEZ, so that we can offer to market. Two, we are exploring and already initiated about 1.3 million sq ft of the existing SEZ vacancy, which we are converting to non-SEZ, by exploring moving some of the tenants to SEZ tenants to other buildings and denotifying the entire building. 1.3 million sq ft is in process under that route. Finally, obviously, the advocacy efforts continue.
Given that we have more supply coming up in terms of new product and given also that we are focused on pre-commitment on the 6.6, we think we'll be reasonably fine in terms of the leasing momentum for the full year next year. We'll obviously lay out a guidance next quarter. Initially, the first two quarters, the applicability or announcement of the date or SEZ policy may definitely hamper or slow down the starter SEZ vacancy that we have and the leasability of that. Just in terms of numbers, we have about Today we have about 4.8 million sq ft vacancy as of December. Of that, 4 million is SEZ.
As I mentioned, 1.3 of that we are converting to non-SEZ, which we have ability to under the existing framework, and 0.7 of non-SEZ already. Yes, you know, it means that for next two quarters, there will be a little bit of challenge given the conversion. At the same time, given we have a massive under construction and about to be delivered pipeline, I think we'll be reasonably better off compared to compared to the market.
Can I just add one small piece to that, Kunal? I think, you know, there's been an. We can't understate sort of the efforts of the advocacy effort program here, right? I think the ministry and the government, I think everybody is being really lobbying hard to make sure that this happens. This is a big year for India, right? I mean, at the end of the day, we've differentiated. I mean, the market's held up well relative to where China is. Yes, China is opening up, but India has done very well. This is a year that, you know, we host the infrastructure, you know, the G20. There's a lot of focus from tenants as well who are clearly looking sort of for non-SEZ space.
As we said, the demand for that's off the charts. My sense is, you know, thinking of sort of a couple of quarters down from now is when you probably see sort of a resolution sort of kick in. They're all focused on it. The government's aware of that. I think, it's something that I think we will be able to get some clarity on.
No, sure. Understand that. Seems like the new addition is very timely. If I can push in the follow-up here, wanted to understand this INR 1.3 million of conversion, is that expected to be operationally and financially smooth, or, you know, what might that involve?
Yeah, I mean, Kunal, what we have done is, one of the recent deliveries in Pune 0.9 that we have converted, we expect that to happen anytime in the next one month or so. One of the earlier buildings where we have a legacy IT services occupier in Manyata, you know, vacate, that we have kind of, you know, also relocated fewer smaller tenants within other SEZ buildings in Manyata and ensured that the whole building is vacant and available for denotification under existing regulations. That also we expect to happen in the next two or three months, and we are already in discussions to backfill the space. I think the 1.3 is very near term.
Got that. Okay. Thank you so much.
Thanks, Kunal.
Thanks, Kunal.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Puneet from HSBC. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thank you so much for the opportunity and very heartening to see making extra efforts here on converting it to non-SEZ. My question again is on Manyata. The 0.36 million sq ft which will be expiring next year, is that also SEZ? Is there any visibility on that getting re-leased?
Yeah, Puneet, sure. Roughly, you know, next year, we have of all the vacancies that we have here, you know, the SEZ component is what you mentioned. About 30% of our expiries in next year is SEZ overall in the portfolio.
Okay.
70% non-SEZ.
Okay.
We expect a large majority of our expiries next year, it's 0.9 million sq ft as per our deck. You know, in a business of this size, we may always have 100,000-200,000 extra.
Yeah.
You know, we think a large majority of that will be renewed. We don't think extra SEZ space will be added to stock if we let's say if we're talking in end of March 2024.
Yeah.
I think it will be about 100,000 or 200,000 sq ft additional SEZ space which will not be renewed at the end of FY 2024 as per estimates as of today.
You're saying out of 0.3, 0.4, you will still be able to renew at least half of it, half of the SEZ space?
Yeah, we think little higher than that. Yes.
Okay. Understood. The second question is on the NOI for ETV. That seems to be lower on a quarter-on-quarter basis from INR 208 crore to INR 172. Anything to highlight there?
Abhishek, would you want to take that?
Hi, Puneet. if you look at quarter-on-quarter, the NDCF is lower because, largely because of the fact that during the current quarter, we have received lower security deposits as compared to the previous quarter.
Okay. It's just a security deposit.
Lastly on just.
Sorry.
No, sorry, Puneet. I just wanted to mention that, you know, in general, we just look at more, while we appreciate, you know, quarter thing, but in general, we look at it more from a year-to-date or full year because there'll always be some movements in, you know, security deposits and working capital, quarter-to-quarter.
Understood. That's helpful. Lastly, on just on the hotels, you know, from industry commentary, we seem to be hearing that, you know, occupancies are much higher, but all your hotels are still sub 50%. What should we read into that?
Yeah, sure. Puneet, if I can, you know, speak through the slide 34 of our earnings deck. What we have seen is that Hilton at Golf Links, you know, the occupancy was low this quarter, one, for seasonal reasons, and two, because the back to work, given the holiday season was lower during the month of November, December. We are seeing pre-pandemic levels both on ADR and this quarter is looking pretty strong. On Four Seasons, if you may recollect, that this was the hotel where we had pretty low ADRs to start with. What we have done is we have re-strategized, we have changed the entire team at the hotel on the operating level, and we have raised the ADRs now to over INR 15,000. You'll see a nice uptick in EBITDA, even though the occupancy still remains low at around 31%.
Right.
Is to take it up to 50% in the next two quarters. And Hilton Manyata, in fact, actually is a you know, is a good success story because within the first year of operations, it's throwing a positive EBITDA for a hotel of this scale, 619 keys. As of today, the occupancy is 50%. Hilton Garden Inn is doing pretty well. While we have not split the occupancy numbers between Hilton Garden Inn and Hilton, in our materials, Hilton Garden Inn is doing pretty well. There, the objective there is to hike the ADRs. Hilton, the larger hotel, which was launched later, and a more premium offering, that we are still, you know, the occupancy level is at about 40%, and we're trying to move the occupancy levels higher there.
That's the segment which depends on business travel from senior executives, and that's where, you know, in November, December, we saw some amount of slowdown. Overall, I would say we are well on track. In fact, the EBITDA which we expect to deliver on hotels to be more than double than our underwriting. I think our hotels are on a good trajectory. We'll continue to see quarter-on-quarter improvement. Q3 has been slow a little bit for two reasons. One, the holiday season, and two, some of the festive season that's happening. Most of our hotels in Bengaluru offer more position to corporate travel and not leisure travel.
Got it. Understood. That's very useful. Thank you so much, and all the best.
Thank you, Puneet.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Mohit Agrawal from IIFL. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks. My first question is on the new supply. You've mentioned that the 0.9 million sq ft in Pune that you're now getting converted into non-SEZ. What is the kind of demand that you are seeing there? Considering in earlier calls you've mentioned that Pune has been slow, and you've mentioned today that, you know, you're seeing some recovery. If you could give some color on that. Also on the 1.7 million sq ft that is going to come up in the next six months between N3 and Oxygen.
Sure, Mohit. Thank you. On Pune, you know, ETZ, we delivered 0.9 million sq ft, which I mentioned earlier, that we are converting to non-SEZ and expect it to be successful, expect it to go through in the next one or two months. So far, what we have seen is that Pune as a market is recovering, but the traction is more on the east side. These are banks and financial services client base. For West Pune, demand still remains muted while we have done some deals, but mainly, you know, it is awaiting clarity on DESH Bill, although we have seen some early signs of pickup.
What we have done in Pune is we've done two or three leases on the new building which you mentioned at about 150,000 sq ft. Our pipeline currently is about 400,000 sq ft for Pune. 120,000 sq ft of that is in advanced discussions, and that's included in our 850,000 sq ft overall leasing pipeline for Q4 that we indicated. Most of the inquiries are for non-SEZ. Of, you know, of the entire vacancy or vacant area that we have in Pune, half of it is SEZ, and hence that's been a marketing challenge. We have seen existing occupiers expanding.
We have seen in the pipeline some of the European captives in auto-automobile and renewables, we're speaking to them, and that's included in the pipeline. We are also seeing some new tech players across healthcare, looking at space. You know, maybe two or three quarters down the lane, while it's, while it's including the 400,000 sq ft pipeline, we have some large Fortune 500 American corporates who are looking to set up centers in Pune. I would say that, Pune is expected to be slow, for the next two quarters. It's awaiting both clarity on DESH Bill on the SEZ side, and the back to office on Pune has been slower than what we have seen overall in our portfolio as well as in Bengaluru and ETV especially.
I think we'll have to just be patient on Pune. You know, the good thing about our portfolio, with the scale that we're operating, is we can play the patient game in markets where there is muted demand. We think it'll come back, but as of now, you know, next one or two quarters, we expect the traction to be similar levels at what we have seen.
Yeah, I think just on that as well, just one thing. When we build, I mean, our entire strategy of building is building to where we sort of foresee demand in the future, right? I mean, given that it takes three years to put sort of, you know, from putting a shovel in the ground to actually getting a building up and running. I think we never wanna be in a situation where we're caught offside simply. You know, particularly in these kinds of volatile markets where, you know, interest rates have been rising, where the cost of construction and everything has been sort of, you know, swirling around a bit. We just wanna make sure that we have sort of the buildings ready. We're able to sort of be obviously, you know, to put two.
You know, 900,000 sq ft is effectively two buildings, right? I mean, for us to sort of put that into a, in a market where there is obviously demand from automotive, from renewables, from people looking to do EV. Over time, I think we feel pretty good about the product project and the prospects.
Mohit, if I can just add on the 1 million sq ft in Manyata that we deliver next quarter. There we are seeing pretty robust pipeline. We have about 400,000 sq ft of advanced discussions, which is included in our 850,000 sq ft pipeline number. Just to give you a flavor of the occupiers we're talking to, we're talking to an IT infra services occupier. We're talking to a global engineering and consulting occupier there. We're looking to convert 400,000 sq ft by the time the building is delivered next quarter, in line with our usual target of having 50% of the building pre-committed by the time it's delivered. On Oxygen, which is the 0.7 million sq ft tower in Noida.
Noida, given that most of the buildings are SEZ, this is also an SEZ and in the process of being converted. Here The delivery comes up sometime in June or July of 2023. we are talking to one Fortune 500 big tech company. you know, we'll see how it goes. That's in intermediate discussions. I would reiterate that Bengaluru continues to see a lot of strong traction. Pune, Noida, we think it will take a little bit more time to lease up.
Sure. How much time does it take to denotify from the time you start the process?
Usually it takes about three months. In some certain states like Noida, it's the first time that it's being done in the state itself. That takes a little bit more time for the regulators to kind of, you know, just figure out the processes internally. Typically in Bangalore, we see it happening in three months.
Okay, thanks. My second question is on the rental growth. You know, in an inflationary environment, one would want to believe that, you know, you'd be able to push higher rentals, you know, to account for the overall inflation and interest rates. Wanted to get your thoughts. Have we been able to do that or if the market force is not allowing that?
Yeah. Mohit, you know, the short answer to that is yes, we are seeing rental growth. In fact, Knight Frank in one of its reports earlier this month had mentioned that Bengaluru has seen a year-on-year increase of 11% in rents just for the market overall. We continue to lease at premium to the rent that CBRE expects for our properties this quarter. I mentioned overall, not just for Bengaluru. Overall, for our overall leasing, we have leased at 5% premium to market rent. Obviously, the spreads are much higher if you take into account the renewals and the in-place rents. We are seeing it. You're absolutely right. In an inflationary environment, especially with interest costs rising, we will see the replacement values of the properties go up, which would mean two things.
One, it will mean that supply declines, and we've already seen that last year's announced supply which the IPC is expected to be delivered versus what was actually delivered was lower. We continue to believe that the supply will be constrained. Two, we'll also see rental growth. It's already we are seeing that in Bangalore. Many of our discussions in Bangalore are not centered around rent. It's just centered around solutions, timing and flexibility to the occupiers and quality and wellness. We think over time that will flow through to Noida, Pune as well. Yes, rental inflation is likely. We're already seeing that in Bangalore, and we are trying to see how best we can, you know, convert that into NOI growth on our portfolio.
If you see our in-place rents versus market rent and the gap. Over the last four to six quarters, we have narrowed that gap considerably. That's obviously because of the renewals happening at mark-to-market and higher spreads. As we see better back to work ramp up, which you've already seen a good uptick this quarter, we'll also start seeing even healthier rental growth, not just in Bengaluru, but in other cities over the next two, three quarters. That will also mean that the portfolio will start catching up to those newer rents as leases expire or come up for renewal or new leases as we pre-commit. Yes, rental inflation is something we are seeing, and we believe it'll be demonstrated in the leasing as we move forward.
Great. Thanks. That's all from me.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Kunal Lakhani from CLSA. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good evening. Vikaash, you mentioned that, you know, your physical attendance has been ramping up, and you're at 46% last week. Just want to understand, you know, in your discussion with your occupiers, say at what level of physical attendance, you know, do you think occupiers will be compelled to look at, you know, new office options?
Sure, Kunal. Let me give a little bit flavor. You know, we have a slide in the deck which I can point to. You know, let me give you a flavor of what's happening in the portfolio because it's pretty interesting the trends that we are seeing. It's not similar for all the cities, for all the kind of occupiers as well as for, you know, all properties. If you see slide 13, let me walk you through that and what we believe would be a trigger point. Overall, we saw that the physical attendance was 46% for our properties earlier this in the month in January. Mumbai is already at pre-pandemic levels of 75%. Bengaluru has shown a, you know, a nice uptick, and it's now at around 45%.
In fact, ETV is already at 60%, and that's why we see a lot of pre-commitment activity and pipeline at ETV. ETV, again, if you recollect, has a very high proportion of global captives. Pune and Noida back to work has been slow. It's, you know, around 40% or slightly lower, and that's simply because the IT services back to work has been slower, overall compared to the captives and compared to the big tech. We believe that at around 50-55%, occupiers will be compelled to just look at their space strategies and to firm up their decisions both on medium term as well as on long term. We are already seeing that happening for banks, healthcare, and retail captives.
We think that will also translate and trickle down to the big tech, the product tech companies that we speak of. I think the IT services companies will be the last to come in. I think the back to work is slower in IT services, although we have seen very positive commentary by the CEOs who are trying to push and nudge people back to work. I think at 50%, 55% we'll see a trigger. We are already seeing that in certain segments. If you see, we have renewed, early renewed with a healthy uptick, although we have contracted for much later timeline with a global retail captive and leased out additional space to them in Manyata. The banks continue to feature in our pipeline.
I think a 50%-55% overall physical attendance will require the companies to look at their plans because I think it will never be 100%. It was never 100% pre-pandemic. I think somewhere around 70%-75% is what is being expected. That is the level at which they will need to start factoring in more space. I think 55%. We have not seen conversations around desk sharing. I think that's the conversation that's not happening. There will be flexibility, so there will be certain amount of work from home. Majority of the time business leaders want people to be back to work. There's a lot of requirement of space to be remodeled. That's the discussions happening, both on, creating more social spaces and on larger per person seat space.
Sure. Sure. That's helpful. 50%-55% going by the traction that you're seeing, say about one or two quarters we should be there?
Yes, we think so too as well, Kunal. That's why we said, you know, the second half of this year we believe that we'll see traction on the larger leases. By that time, global corporates will also firm up their, both their long-term plans. You know, because if they come to India, they have to think of a five or 10-year commitment if they are offshoring an R&D process or any other center. I think by that time they'll also be able to get internal approvals on the CapEx requirements to set up or offshore more to India.
Sure. Sure. That's helpful. My second question was on again the financials. So on a nine-month basis, right, YTD, we have seen a 12% growth in the NOI, but on NDCF basis, we've seen a decline. Understandably so because of the conversion of the Zero- Coupon Bonds and so on and so forth. Like, you know, going into next year, should we expect or can we expect the NOI growth to also reflect into NDCF growth? There could be a disconnect there.
Yeah. You know, Kunal, while I request my colleague Abhishek to answer, in general, I think we'll refrain from commenting on next year. In general, given the leasing momentum, for next year, you know, we are targeting to deliver double-digit NOI growth. There are a couple of factors which will determine the DPU trajectory, interest rates and base will be, you know, two of them. Certainly, again, we'll give more flavor in the coming quarter when we lay out our annual guidance. Abhishek, do you want to speak to what you're seeing for FY23 this year?
Kunal, actually what is happening is for this YTD basis for this current year, it is also the zero coupon refinancing and also the interest rates on the loan with interest cost on the loan for the deliveries that we have done during this year. That has also come and hit the NDCF. Going forward, all this leasing that has happened during the current year, those will definitely go to the NOI and will flow through because of our efficient flow through from NOI to NDCF. However, the interest rates have risen. We will have to refi certain loans. All of those factors will also play into it. We will give a guidance the way we are giving every year.
Yeah, let me jump in here for a quick second, if you don't mind, Abhishek Agarwal. Kunal Lakhani, I think, I mean, if you just lay out sort of the picture right now, right? I think, you know, for the longest time, we've actually sort of hit guidance in the past. We're very cautious about this, right? You have to understand that, you know, our distribution flow through unfortunately is also dependent on absolute interest rate environment that isn't really conducive to sort of, you know, financing, right? I mean, if you think about global REITs, you think about, you know, people who are financing at 2%, 3% historically, they have obviously moved into a sort of a volatile financing scenario where now effectively they go from 2%-4%.
That's sort of doubling their interest costs and their cost of capital. We move from, call it, you know, seven to somewhere in the eight, and we're still sort of the best credit in the industry. I think, you know, overall, what we try to make sure that we don't sort of, you know, overpromise something on a distribution basis that then it's very hard for us to sit there and manage, right? At the end of the day, we build sort of growth through the scale that we have sort of in the portfolio. We try and buy sort of, you know, a speed of sort of, you know, growth from outside. You know, to the extent we can manage sort of the drop downs efficiently, we do.
I think in this kind of an environment, I think the biggest risk, we've already sort of managed the interest rate risk, right? If you will, it's baked into our stock. It's baked into our ability to still get sort of the financing that we do. We're getting some very, very sort of attractive offers as well. I think with that in mind, we just don't wanna sort of, you know, overstep and tell you that we're gonna be able to, you know, deliver some kind of growth, which clearly in a volatile environment would be a bit imprudent.
Yeah. You know, if I can just conclude that, Kunal, you know, we are really as management focused on NOI growth because I think NOI growth in the long term will deliver value and will translate into flow through into the NDCF or distributions. You know, for example, if you're seeing new buildings being built and delivered, of course, as till the time the building gets stabilized, let's say one year, right, the interest costs will be a drag to the NDCF. You know, if you look at it from a three-year horizon from a unit holder perspective, what we need to be doing is keep delivering new building and start trying to stabilize them as soon as possible. NOI growth is our focus.
Given that 100% of our debt is coupon-bearing, you know, there will be efficient flow through as and when the buildings start getting stabilized and the rents start flowing in. Given the lever that we have both on mark-to-market lease up, which we've already seen a rebound on the same- store, as well as escalation to the new deliveries and their revenues, we think, you know, we think we are well-placed to target an, you know, a double-digit NOI growth in this coming year.
Sure. All right. Thanks.
Thank you.
Thank you, Kunal.
The next question is from the line of Karan Khanna from Ambit Capital. Please go ahead.
Thanks for the opportunity. Just a couple of clarifications. On the mark-to-market side, while Bengaluru opportunity remains strong, Mumbai and Pune have seen a downward mark-to-market on the expiries in FY 24-26. Can you help elaborate this further, as in case of FIFC, which is in Bandra-Kurla Complex, we are seeing new leasing being done in excess of INR 300 per sq ft, while the mark-to-market reported is only INR 275.
You know, Karan, just to answer that, I think the market rent assessment is a third-party assessment of CBRE, and they have kind of been more conservative on Pune, given that Pune market has been sluggish. Some of the leases that come up for expiry and renewal next year in Pune as well as in Mumbai. In Mumbai, it's pretty typical, but in Pune as well, given the contracted escalations that these are 8, 10, 12 year leases, you know, there may be a slight mark-to-market downward, but I think that's not material. I think it's a judgment thing, whether it's a 48, 50 or 52 rupee market in Pune. We're not overly, you know, worried about that.
In FIFC of course, we are trying to see if we can push rents higher. Given Mumbai contributes a small portion I think, you know, and the fact that this building has a co-owner, I think the valuers have been conservative, but we have consistently tried to lease at about INR 285-90 per sq ft or higher.
Sure. Secondly, on your, you know, when you did touch upon your hotel portfolio, while we've seen the physical occupancy increasing, the hotel occupancies have stagnated or perhaps were declining in the last quarter. Just wanted to understand at what office park level of physical occupancy do you see the hotel starting to benefit as well?
Honestly, Kiran, Karan, there are a couple of things here. While the hotel occupancy Q3 has declined, let me just kind of break down this into two or three pieces. I mentioned it earlier during the call. The Golf Links hotel occupancy was obviously linked to two factors. One, the Golf Links back to work in November, December given holiday season, and given all our hotels cater to corporate clients, there's no leisure travel. There's very minimal leisure travel involved. It's all corporate and hence Q3 generally has been a, you know, a slower quarter comparatively, still much better than the pandemic period, right?
Golf Links maybe has been slightly impacted, but, you know, at about 40, 50% levels back to work, we think the hotel can reach pre-pandemic occupancy levels of 70, 72%. Coming to Four Seasons, as I said, here we are focused on repositioning the hotel, given that it contributes negligibly to our NOI, and we have raised the ADR substantially from earlier what we were achieving to the standard a Four Seasons hotel should be charging. That's second. Third, on Manyata Hilton, given that it's a large hotel still stabilizing, and I mentioned the larger Hilton format was launched later and the senior level business travel is still picking up.
You know, we saw occupancy levels of 49%, which I think for a 619 key hotel within the first year of its launch is still fantastic. Overall, I would say hotels will see a consistent overall growth trajectory. For example, if I were to give you a forward-looking flavor, there are citywide events such as G20, Aero Show, Petro Conference, which are expected to generate additional demand, especially in Embassy Manyata Hilton in Q4. We think hotels will continue to stabilize and, you know, continue to deliver incremental NOI quarter-on-quarter. We are well placed for that.
Sure. Just lastly, you know, if you could just give us some ballpark understanding in terms of, you know, having seen the entire commercial real estate space over the last couple of decades, by when do you expect the occupancies to perhaps touch across your pre-COVID levels of 95%, and if you think that the same is achievable even without the SEZ benefits?
That's a very interesting question, Karan. Let me put it this way. We are looking by the end of this year to go back to the early to mid-90s. You know, we have a path towards that. If you see the expiry profile next year of 0.9 million sq ft, and even factoring for additional vacancies or expiries that usually come up as normal part of business, we expect a large proportion of next year's expiries to be renewed. Plus we've seen uptick in positive momentum in net leasing given the large occupier who had legacy leases was vacating in staggered basis. That's ended in September. We think we have a path to occupancy levels of early 90s in the next two to three quarters on a same-store basis.
I would like to impress what I mentioned earlier, that we would like to emphasize and focus on NOI growth simply because we think, you know, we think leasing, let's say, at an Embassy TechVillage and achieving premium rents at a faster velocity contributes higher to NOI growth than, let's say, at a Pune or Noida. It's not to say that the efforts are not in Pune, Noida. I think NOI growth is really what we would like to guide you and to request you to focus on. Physical occupancy levels can be misleading because we would not do deals just for the optics purposes. We are very selective on occupier profile, who we'll continue to grow. As I mentioned earlier, one, we have paths towards early to mid-90s in the next three to four quarters on a same-store basis.
We've already seen an uptick. If you see our guidance on the leasing pipeline, 850,000 sq ft, roughly half of that is fresh leasing and half of that is under construction pipeline. If you see our exit profile for Q4, it's negligible. Just if you, if you do the math, I mean, we will be close to 90% on a same-store basis by next quarter itself. Obviously, it all depends on if we can execute and get the leases signed. On the NOI front, as I mentioned already earlier, that we are targeting a healthy double-digit NOI growth next year. You know, that's our core focus.
Sure. Great. That's it from my side. Thank you and all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you.
The next question is from the line of Ravi Agarwal from Mirae Asset Investment Managers. Please go ahead.
Thank you for the opportunity. My question is largely a clarification on the loan, the CF loan, taken by Embassy Property Developments. There was a delay in the servicing of the repayment, citing some regulatory issues. I would just like to have an update on the status of that. Is there, would like to also confirm that is there any liquidity issues or delays in repayment still going on? Thank you.
Ravi, hi. Thank you for the question. Let me take this and Ritwik or Abhishek, feel free to add in.
Yeah.
Couple of things. One, it's more appropriate for this question to be directed to the Embassy sponsor. You know, as a principle, we don't want to comment on market speculation and news, you know, especially around our sponsors. You know, as we have highlighted in our Q3 results, and as Abhishek spoke, our operational and financial position remains strong, on track to deliver on our guidance, and we have triple A stable rating, both from CRISIL and CARE on our balance sheet. We have very conservative leverage, best-in-class interest rates, and negligible debt maturities this fiscal. We have access to wide debt, investor debt pool across mutual funds, insurers, FPIs, banks, NBFCs, corporate treasuries. You know, we don't see any impact on the REIT itself, and we don't want to comment on market speculation.
Sure. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Arun Kumar from Unifi Capital. Please go ahead.
Hello. Thanks for the opportunity provided.
Yeah, Arun.
H earty congratulations on the leasing traction. Two questions. One, on an average over the last three years, the NOI margin has been on an average around 85%. In this financial year, over the last three quarters, it is somewhere between 81%-82%. As it has been explained in the presentation, it's due to the product mix between the commercial office space and the hotels. Is the new 81%-82% new range or is there any scope for improvement in the NOI margin, sir?
Yeah. Thank you, Arun. Why don't I ask my colleague, Abhishek, to take this question?
Yeah, Arun. Thank you for the question. Actually, you've put it right. Earlier, the NOI margin was around 85%-86%. Now you see that the NOI margin has gone down to 81%. This is because of the product mix. What has happened is during the current quarter, or the just previous quarter, the revenue from office has not increased so much, but the end revenue from hotel business has increased a lot. The product, the mix has changed. Having said that, while we have done so many leasings during the current nine months, the revenue from that will start flowing in from the next quarter or the quarter next. The mix can again go back to almost a similar range. You can expect anything between 81 to 85 to come back.
Yeah. Arun, can I just add here, you know, there's a little bit more flavor on the segment mix and segment-wise margins in page number 13 of our supplemental data book. Arun, you know, the way we look at it, you know, is we will have more hotels come up. As hotel revenues increase, you know, with ETV Hotel and all coming up, the overall ratio consolidated ratio NOI margin will be misleading. That's why we've segregated for office and other segment. Office we consistently have been at around 86%. If you see the year-on-year and the quarter-on-quarter trend in that slide 13 of the supplemental data book. I think we'll have to just factor for the segment mix and see the segregated ratios. You know, office remains best-in-class. Hotel margins, obviously the nature of the business are different than office.
Got it, sir. My second question, with the 6.6 million sq ft that we are planning to add in ROFO assets, do we need additional equity to fund them? We have also approved r aising of debt by another INR 5,000 crores. What is the level of leverage that you would be comfortable with? Does AAA rating warrant you to maintain some specific level of leverage?
Yeah, let me, it's Ritwik. Let me take that. Firstly, I think, I mean, we've got to break down the square footage, right? You've got 6.6 of development that's in-house. That we typically fund sort of through debt, right? That's either sort of you can think about bonds at the REIT level, you know, term loans, LRD at the SPV. That's something that, you know, we don't think about sort of any other source of financing beyond sort of just what we've laid out in our supplemental deck. We're very comfortable with that. Now, the acquisition is something that's a little different, right?
I mean, that's obviously a function of, you know, the financial markets where it could be debt, a mix of debt, mix of equity, depending on sort of, you know, market conditions. I mean, take ETV, for example, right? When we did Embassy TechVillage, that we did effectively when it was. You know, we did do a placement for that. Market conditions were obviously, sort of also, you know, played a big role in the way we look to finance that transaction. Again, but typically, what we don't do is for the in-house construction and development, we wouldn't be looking to go out there and raise equity, you know, in these kinds of markets for that.
Yeah. You know, that's absolutely right, Ritwik. Arun, just to add to what Ritwik said, the INR 5,100 crores that you referred to in terms of approval for debt raise, that's just a provision. We are not, you know, it's not the intent that we go ahead and raise it right now. We don't have a use of proceeds. We've never raised debt unless we have a clear sight of where we're using it. That's an enabling resolution because there are maturities that are coming up. Let me break down the law, thought process on INR 5,100 crores. INR 1,000 crores of that today as we speak, we have refinanced some of the existing loans close to INR 950 crores at sub 8% rate.
We have used INR 1,000 crores of that limit to refinance existing debt, again to manage and optimize on interest costs. That's one. The balance INR 4,100 crores is towards an enabling resolution as we have in the second half starting October and February, as we've included in the debt, we have expiries coming off of existing bonds. We can, you know, we have that data in our presentation on slide number 37. It's an enabling resolution to ensure that, you know, we have flexibility to refi the existing debt. There's no intent to borrow additionally. The only borrowing, as Ritwik mentioned, we will do is for new construction and if and when we go ahead with an acquisition.
If we were to do the entire 6.6 million sq ft development, even assuming that the value of the buildings does not increase, which means the denominator for the leverage ratio when we calculate does not increase, we'll still not reach the 30% leverage. We as management are very comfortable with debt levels of around 30% Net Debt to GAV. On the acquisition front, as Ritwik indicated, the size of the acquisition is expected to be less than 4% of the GAV of the company. The acquisition is a pretty. It's not, it's strategic if, you know, as we're looking at it, if we were to negotiate and announce, but it is less than INR 2,000 crores and, you know, it will typically be funded by a mix of debt and equity.
Overall, I would say that we're not looking at breaching the 30% margin, 30% figure on the leverage that we as management are comfortable. However, in the medium term, if there's a transformative acquisition like an ETV, we are comfortable at around 35% overall. We would not like to breach 35% in the next three to five years.
Yeah. I think to your last point on the AAA rating that is required.
Yeah. They're typical covenants, you know, being able to access INR 1,000 crore debt at, you know, at sub 8% in today's market just speaks to the fact how we've managed and maintained our balance sheet. Yes, there are a couple of there are covenants typical to triple A rating around including EBITDA coverage. You know, we are very comfortable with those leverage ratios, including for factoring for any potential organic or inorganic growth. We always factor what it means to our debt covenants when we undertake, you know, additional growth.
Got it, sir. One final question. We are targeting a double-digit NOI growth next year. Would the same double digit target turn toward DPU as well?
You know, Arun, again, we didn't want to give a guidance or an indication for next year. What we were alluding to is that given the levers that we have, we should be back to the double digit. We've always stated that mid-teen is something, NOI growth is something we would like to target as a business, given the four levers that we have of mark-to-market, lease up, escalations and new delivery. You know, we would not want to lay out a guidance on NOI and DPU today. We will come out with a guidance next quarter. Again, I would want to impress to, you know, to, and request everybody on the call that our focus is on NOI growth simply because NOI growth will eventually, you know, translate and flow through into distributions.
The base build as well as the rising interest rates will have a bearing on the distributions. You know, we're looking at growth, and we think if we can deliver the growth at those 24% yields on the construction, having a fantastic spread given our cost of financing is at around 8%, and the yields we are doing on new developments, 24%, we think, you know, we'll be able to deliver DPU growth in the medium term if we can focus on NOI and grow that. I will leave it at that. Yes, our focus is to enhance the overall value. We are not overly focused on distributions. Distributions will come in, and it will flow through. We are also not focused on occupancy. We are focused on NOI growth.
Thank you, sir. Thank you.
Thanks, Arun.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, due to time constraint, we'll take one last question, which is on the line of Samar Sarda from Axis Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks. Good evening. I had a follow-up question with respect to the SEZ and the denotification. While we've seen a lot of landlords who've, like, denotified vacant lands of the residential spaces and in a couple of instances also under construction buildings. If you could help us, if there is any precedent of the number of months, like how much time does it take, or any other buildings which are, like, ready occupied and then, like, vacant, which have been denotified in the past?
Samar, thank you for the question. Typically, assuming that you have that the building complies with the requirements of denotification, which specifically is that the entire building needs to be vacant, and also that the support infrastructure needs to be segregated. You know, it typically takes around three months in states which have done it previously. In Noida, we have experienced that it's taking longer. It, it's very typical in Bangalore to get it denotified within three months of application. Abhishek, would you want to add something?
Yeah. There are other conditions also, like contiguity of.
Yeah.
All of those conditions need to be met for these timelines to be basically adhered to.
Yeah.
Yeah, we have precedences of that happening in Karnataka.
Yeah, I mean, this is, we have done the denotification, not post-acquisition, but pre-acquisition in ETV, it's happened couple of times.
Okay.
Similarly, Manyata as well. I mean, denotification of a full building block and denotification is a procedural, you know, routine business as usual, we would say. The challenge we are facing today, the first question by Kunal on the DESH policy is that what do we do of buildings which are half vacant and half occupied on SEZ? The law today does not provide for denotification of strata or floor by floor, and that's the challenge. If the entire building is vacant and we comply with other conditions of contiguity and infrastructure segregation from non-SEZ, it's pretty procedural. Three months is a fair timeline, and it's been done in the past.
Yeah. Which we believe they're trying to change in the DESH bill with respect to the floors.
Absolutely, you're right. The request from the industry as a whole is that we, the government allows floor by floor and also does it in a single window clearance on a declaration, self-declaration basis so that there's, you know, we can just speed up the conversion process and that, you know, the verification happens post-facto. That even that three months, we can kind of bring it down to seven days. That's the request from the industry. Just to give you context of SEZ space, India today would have about 180 million sq ft of SEZ spaces, of which around 30 million sq ft is vacant. I'm talking about Grade A spaces. Roughly. This is based on some published reports. That's why this is a critical component of regulation that needs to be addressed, you know, that needs to be addressed.
That's where the industry has been in advocacy with the government.
Just a small follow-up on this, again, a little more operationally. The DESH Bill might come in over the next three months or over the next six months. It might, like, because it is a government-driven procedure. We have seen some other landlord peers who have been leasing space in their SEZs, because most of the SEZs are campus-style developments. For expandability options, other things, obviously it's not on 100 out of 100 the activity might probably be 20, 25 out of 100. Are you guys also, like, still evaluating options where tenants do come here or that's a complete no-no until and unless the DESH Bill is clear?
Karan, Samar, that's a, that's a good question. Let me break it down into two things. One, what we have done and what's happening in the portfolio, and two, where India is headed. In general, it would be fair to say that given the tax holidays have, you know, tax holiday have been phased out on SEZs, the demand has moved disproportionately to non-SEZ. That also reflects the fact that India occupiers and office demand has moved up the value chain, right? Because the larger occupiers are in India not to save on rent cost. They're in India to access talent at scale. We have seen global captives, they're just not bothered about the tax incentives. They want non-SEZ spaces because they want flexibility of operations and flexibility to grow their business.
SEZs, obviously, there are a bunch of conditions that need to be complied with. India office in general has moved towards that, which is a great sign because it shows that the market is maturing and the propensity to pay rents, higher rents, has increased by the occupiers. You know, we are moving more and more towards global captives and big tech, whereas in the past, IT services would have been a large component of the new demand. That's one. Directionally, India has moved there. I would say for demand that we see in the market and pipeline, it is safe to say over 90% of that would be non-SEZ inquiries and demand today. Having said that, we do see SEZ demand.
For example, year to date, we have done 2 million sq ft of SEZ leasing, both pre-leases, where we did a large pre-lease with a banking occupier in Manyata, that was SEZ. We've done a large renewal, SEZ renewal. We are seeing SEZ renewals and new leasing. Even in Q3 alone, we did about 230,000 sq ft of SEZ leasing. These are mostly existing occupiers who are expanding their existing SEZ benefits going on. We have, we've seen any new global captive or large big tech, taking up space or growing, it's all non-SEZ. Yes, we are being opportunistic where we can do SEZ leasing. We have done that in Q3 as well as year to date, 2 million sq ft, including pre-commitments on newer buildings. I think that is the more usual inquiries we get is of non-SEZs. Samar, does that help?
Thank you. He is out of the queue now. I will now hand it over to Mr. Abhishek Agarwal for closing comments.
Thank you so much for joining us on today's call and for your great questions. Most of 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. Thanks again.
Thank you. Thank you, everyone. Have a good evening.
Thank you very much. On behalf of Embassy Office Parks REIT, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.