Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Kshitij Jain of Godrej Properties. Thank you, and over to you, Mr. Jain.
Yeah, hi. Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us on Godrej Properties Q3 FY24 Results Conference Call. We have with us Mr. Adi Godrej, Executive Chairperson; Mr. Gaurav Pandey, Managing Director and CEO; and Mr. Rajendra Khetawat, CFO of the company. Before we begin this call, I would like to point out that some statements made in today's call may be forward-looking in nature, and a disclaimer to this effect has been included in the results presentation. I would now like to invite Mr. Godrej to make his opening remarks.
Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. I'll begin by discussing the highlights of the quarter, and we then look forward to taking your questions and suggestions. The demand for homes in India is at its highest levels historically and has gained further momentum during the quarter. The positive market opportunity is driven by the overall strength in India's economy, the cyclical upturn in India's residential real estate market, the need for modern homes with better amenities, as well as consumer preference towards tier one developers. The RBI's upward revision of financial year 2024 GDP growth outlook to 7% during the quarter reiterates India's position as the world's fastest growing major economy.
The government's continued focus on housing for all and urban infrastructure, combined with the fiscal prudence evident in last week's Union Budget, strengthen our conviction that the real estate sector will continue to do well in the years ahead. The third quarter was Godrej Properties' most successful quarter ever in terms of new bookings, with year-on-year growth of 76% to INR 5,720 crore. This was 14% higher than our previous best-ever quarter in quarter two of the current financial year. These consecutive record-breaking quarters have ensured that our nine-month financial year 2024 sales have already crossed the booking value registered in all of financial year 2023, which is our previous best-ever year. We are confident of building on this momentum and going well past our annual bookings guidance of INR 14,000 crore for the full financial year.
This strong growth can be attributed to extremely strong response by customers to some of our new launches during the quarter. Godrej Aristocrat in Sector 49 in Gurugram was GPL's most successful ever launch, achieving a booking value of over INR 2,667 crore from 1.35 million sq ft of area sold. It is noteworthy that the total expected booking value for this project has increased by approximately 30% from the time we acquired it a year ago. Godrej Ananda in Bengaluru was another project which achieved more than INR 500 crore booking value during the quarter. Godrej Avenue Eleven in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region was launched in September 2023 and has achieved a booking value of INR 687 crore within four months of launch.
We are pleased to see this strong customer response to new launches across all the cities we are present in. Cash collections and net operating cash flow respectively grew by 43% to INR 2,411 crore, and 45% to INR 798 crore in the third quarter. For the nine months of the financial year, we recorded cash collections of INR 6,743 crore and net operating cash flow of INR 1,726 crore, representing a growth of 30% and 34% respectively. We remain on track to achieve our guidance of INR 10,000 crore of cash collections during the financial year. In the business development perspective, we added one new housing project in Bangalore with an estimated booking value of INR 1,250 crore.
We now have our strongest-ever project pipeline that can deliver robust growth for the next few years. The most important objective for the company in 2024 will be to launch all of our recently added projects. We believe this will dramatically accelerate our bookings and earnings growth trajectory in the years ahead. We will, of course, continue to do targeted business development to plug holes in our current portfolio and ensure continued growth beyond the next three years. Our reported earnings for the third quarter were healthy, though somewhat muted, because we did not have any project completions during this quarter. Our total income increased by 43% to INR 524 crore, and net profits increased by 6% to INR 62 crore.
For the nine months of the financial year 2024, total income has increased by 126% to INR 2,410 crore, EBITDA increased by 61% to INR 548 crore, and net profit increased by 60% to INR 254 crore. On that note, I conclude my remarks. Thank you all for joining us on the call. We'd now be happy to discuss any questions, comments, or suggestions you may have.
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 the 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. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles... The first question is from the line of Puneet Gulati from HSBC. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thank you so much, and congratulations on good details. My first question is on NCR market, you know, which has become a substantial part of your sales bookings number as well. The market pricing also has been quite strong. What are your thoughts on NCR market? Do you think this kind of run rate of almost, you know, INR 2,000 crore-INR 3,000 crore that you are doing from on a quarterly basis from NCR will be sustainable? And how do you expect the market to absorb the price increase going forward?
Thanks for the question, Puneet. Yeah, I think the NCR market, you know, has performed very strongly. We've typically noticed NCR, I think, in all directions of the market cycle, seems to be leading the way. I think last time the down cycle there was first and quite sharp. Yeah, we're seeing the up cycle also being first and quite sharp. Certainly our portfolio in NCR, we think will support strong growth over the next few quarters. We've launched, and I think the reasons for the very positive momentum we've seen in the past two quarters in NCR is we've had a big launch each quarter, one in Noida, one in Gurgaon. We last year added five projects in Gurgaon, of which only one has so far been launched.
So we hope to have one project launch in Gurgaon each quarter of this calendar year, including the current one. We also have a second part of the Noida project that we'd added last year to launch again, which we hope to launch this quarter. While unfortunately it's been quite delayed, but we certainly hope to see Ashok Vihar launched in the first half of next financial year, and I think that will be another big boost to our scale in NCR. So certainly we do feel we have the project portfolio to maintain strong growth in NCR over the next couple of years, and are very happy with the kind of response we're seeing there. So we'll also be looking at new business development opportunities where those make sense.
I think the level of price increase and sort of heatedness in the market in NCR is something we have our eye on. But, you know, my sense is while we won't see that trajectory continue, there has been a kind of reset in the market to these higher price points. Again, the down cycle in NCR was also quite severe, so the base from which prices are going up is reasonably low. So our best sense is that you won't see the kind of price increases we've seen over the last years that are very sharp on an ongoing basis, but probably more packaged to kind of market price growth going forward.
But we see as of now no concerns around on the demand being, you know, overly driven by investors and end users not being interested and so forth. So I think we remain quite confident on the performance of that market, so certainly we'll keep a close watch on how it continues to perform.
Understood. That's helpful. Secondly, on your cash flow perspective, when do you think, with the firm re-situation where operating cash flows will actually start exceeding the business development-related expenses? Or, or do you think that is something that one should not be aspiring for?
Look, I think we're already at that stage. You know, I think this year we could be in a space where if we do business development at levels that is sufficient to kind of replace what we're selling, operating cash flows will I think more than cover those requirements. I think we have intentionally, over the last few years, done a one-time reset, given the opportunity we saw, particularly a few years ago when the cycle was still not taken off in earnest, where land prices were still quite attractive. We saw an opportunity to completely reset the scale of the business. And, you know, we delivered itself growth of 50% last year. We think that that's possible again this year.
So you know, clearly that will require disproportionate investment and more than the cash flows of a smaller base can pay for. But I think as the cash flows from our sales start coming in, which we think have already started of course, but will gather considerable pace through this year, we do expect to be in that position.
Okay. So when should we see it exceeding the land approval and related cash flows outlays of this year, or 2024?
Come again?
I think when should we expect the net operating cash flows exceeding the land-related and approval-related outflows? The INR 583 crore numbers this quarter versus the INR 1,250 crore of last year. Should we expect that next year or, or the year after?
Yeah, again, I think, you know, it is a function of how much business development is done. I think if you look at the booking values that we achieve in a year, if we only do business development roughly equal to that, I think we will already deliver this, this-
Okay.
What you asked in 2024. If we choose for any reason to do more business development, that could of course change. And what could get us to more business development is if sales momentum is even stronger than we'd anticipated, and therefore the requirement to replace inventory is larger than we initially anticipated. But I think we're quite confident that cash flows over even the next 12 months will be extremely robust.
That's clear. Lastly, if you can comment on the competitive intensity in the business development processes across various markets?
... Thanks for the question. Essentially, you see in the business development side, you know, most of the leading players are in a stage of similar, which is basically launching their projects. In some geographies, of course, you know, there is a renewed interest because, you know, some of our peers are doing well. But I don't see as much of a competitive landscape on the retail side like we would see probably say a year and a half back.
Okay. Okay, that's helpful. Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thanks, Sunil.
Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Pritesh Sheth from Motilal Oswal. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity. So just continuing on the NCR, one question, the first question which previous participant asked. So we have, you know, roughly two, three more projects, now, I mean, in fact, three, four more projects now in NCR, including Ashok Vihar. So, you know, pretty much sorted for next year's growth. Now, considering that NCR is contributing 50% to our overall pre-sales in first nine months, now, how do you see the visibility of, you know, project additions in these markets? Because, you know, whatever you acquired, in last, you know, one or, I mean, couple of years, few of the acquisitions where a few of the land were acquired through auctions. So, you know, how is the visibility right now?
Is there enough opportunity to, you know, acquire, keep acquiring projects, you know, to fill that gap, which will happen over the next one and a half years?
Thanks for the question. If you see, I think the question is more about replenishment of inventory in NCR specifically.
Yeah, absolutely.
We have done, say about five acquisitions in Gurgaon, and we have done two acquisitions through auction in Noida. Out of these seven, two have already got launched and very successfully. And we have just by looking at the pipeline, you know, next two to five quarters, every quarter, you know, you would see a launch or two in NCR. And these, some of these launches have significant inventory, you know, logged in. Like, there is a project which should get launched hopefully in this quarter, which is, quite sizable, probably one of the most sizable projects we've done in, Gurgaon in the recent times. So one is that, is there a dire need to replenish inventory right away? I don't see that. But is there an opportunity to evaluate, things at the right valuation? Of course, yes.
So, that is one. Second is, I feel that looking at how the government is shaping up, we would continue to see auctions coming up in NCR, you know, in the next couple of quarters, and we would of course evaluate them on valuation. We see that the valuation is very attractive, and we see opportunistic investments leading to more value creation for us. We'll of course participate, but it is not driven any more by a necessity. It's about more about can we take the opportunity higher?
Yeah. Sure, sure. That's helpful. And, you know, just on your pre-sales guidance, now, obviously it seems like, you know, you would reach your full year guidance. And with launches coming up, you know, what is the kind of expectations now you're building in for this year?
While we've not really given a specific guidance, but, you know, largely to see the previous two quarters, we've been, you know, kind of have achieved a run rate of INR 5,000+ crore, is something directionally we would want to maintain that in quarter four. But frankly, this could be better or something around that. So not giving a specific number, but this is something we would logically be delivering, something in that range.
Sure. And lastly, Bangalore, which is a market where, you know, you are targeting, you know, few more acquisitions and trying to fill that gap. You know, so any outlook there, you know, are opportunities coming in line, you know, to your expectations and, you know, so any update on that?
You know, if you see South Zone, internally, as we label it, is one of the very interesting high-performing markets from an inventory sales point of view. You know, FY 2022, it was INR 700 crore. It became 2,100-2,200 previous financial year, and it is about to reach a similar number, you know, in this financial year, and will significantly beat that of last year. So yes, you are right, there is a very targeted investment strategy for South. We've just done one acquisition in Yeshwanthpur, and, the endeavor is that in coming months you would see, you know, a couple of other acquisitions in South India.
Sure. That's helpful. That's it from my side. All the best.
Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Praveen Chaudhary from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Thank you for taking my question. I have two questions. The first one is, the pre-sales, which, I must congratulate. These numbers are very, very, very good and exceptional. So you mentioned last two years you've been growing at 50%. This year should also grow 50%-60%. I don't think market is growing at that level, so I just wanted to understand the sustainability of pre-sales growth even in FY 2025 and 2026, considering market continues to be strong. Well, how should I think about it? Is, 20% analyst number a reasonable number, and then you eventually do 50%, 60%? And what drives you to continue to beat the market, or your peers? Is the first question.
The second question is related to the gearing, and you have 70% gearing right now, net gearing. I just wanted to understand if there is a number that makes you comfortable, or for a short period of time you can handle even higher because you know that cash flow will eventually come back. Thank you.
... Thanks very much. The growth, I think obviously we're very happy to have seen two years back to back, like, roughly 50% growth. I clearly don't think those kind of growth rates will be sustainable over the medium term. I think we'd look more towards you know, ambitious but reasonable steady state growth in the range of around 20% on an ongoing basis.
But I think the opportunity we saw was to kind of reset the scale of the business during the downturn by raising capital, using that to invest when the timing was right, we felt, in acquiring land, and we did a lot of outright land acquisition with that same logic in mind, that we are acquiring at the right time, and we best to maximize our economic interest in the projects that are gonna get developed through a rising market, and I think that's playing out as we'd expected. We, you know, certainly will continue to aspire for rapid growth.
It could be some years, you know, like we've had the last couple years, but probably over a medium-term perspective, roughly 20% is a sensible assumption and one we can hopefully create some positive surprises on. From a gearing perspective, you know, we've, we've indicated that we'd, we'd like to maintain a range of 0.5:1 to 1:1. I think we think that is the range where we are best capitalizing on the scale of opportunity available in the real estate market in India today, while also, managing our balance sheet prudently. That said, as you rightly pointed out, this is not a hard and fast, gate, where we can't go above or below this.
We have, you know, spent the last couple of years under this level as we raised equity with the intent of a disproportionate investment. As that investment has happened, we have now returned to the range that we'd like to operate in. I think what I would say is that if we were getting towards the higher end of that range, we would look quite carefully at what we need to do to further strengthen operating cash flows, to make sure that we don't go too far past that. But certainly, if we see very strong cash flows around the corner and feel that there are also good business development opportunities that we should seize, we would be okay with, you know, temporarily going beyond that range as well.
That's very, very clear. Thank you so much. If I could follow up with one more question, if that permits. The one question is about ASP expectation. Clearly market is hot, things are very well doing very well. But the concern is if the price go up too much, too fast, then we either will get the speculators in the market or, or basically affordability will take a hit. What are you seeing in the market at this point in time? Are you worried that if this continues, maybe it will become less affordable in future? Thank you. That's all I have.
Yeah, look, I think, you know, the real estate sector in India and globally has been prone to kind of a cyclical nature. And honestly, I'm not convinced that there's anything that any individual developer can do to change the nature of that cyclicality. And the reason for the cyclicality is also quite clear. It takes, from a supply perspective, quite a lot of time to respond to what one is seeing in the market. Therefore, in a bad market, developers stop bringing supply, and once the demand picks up, you inevitably get into a situation where supply is a bit short because developers haven't been actively planning for new development during the downside. So that, in turn, leads to the kind of price increases we're now seeing. Developers respond to that, and, you know, supply increases, and you then have the next leg of the cycle.
So my sense is that, you know, as an individual developer, the sensible thing to do is to try to understand to the best of our ability, where we are in the cycle, what is the most likely outcome? Understand that there cannot be certainty on this. We have to be prepared for all eventualities. Make sure that our balance sheet is strong enough to withstand the downturn, and in fact take advantage of them, and that we have the portfolio scale to fully maximize the opportunity in the upturn. I think, you know, if you look at even the largest developers in India, including us and other leading peers, would still have mid-singles and lower to mid-singles in market share.
So I think the ability to kind of determine pricing for the market is not as strong as one might imagine, and it is a little bit of responding to what we see in the market. And clearly, I think some markets are seeing very sharp growth rates, again, which is nothing that comes as a great surprise to us. This is very typical of the third year of upcycle that we're currently in. I think we should also be quite clear that, you know, four or five years from now, if history is a good guide, we should expect to see the cycle turn again.
Now, again, that can move up or down by a year or two for various factors, but the basic cyclicality of the sector, I think, is here to stay, and I think it's incumbent upon individual developers to figure out how to best maximize the opportunity in each leg of the cycle and maintain a balance sheet that can withstand any surprises that come along.
Thank you very much, and congratulations for very strong results, operating cash flow, collection lines, et cetera. So good luck. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Kunal Lakhan from CLSA. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, good evening. So my first question is on our business development target. We have retained a full year target of INR 15,000 crore worth of GDV. Does that mean that, you know, in Q4, would we see some high spend towards the land acquisitions?
... Yeah, I think we will hit that target. I think we've already done about INR 8,000 crore, so 6 or 1,000 crore of further booking value to be locked in. I don't anticipate a huge spike being linked to that. Yes, I think we will be doing some amount of business development this quarter. I think it's also worthwhile to note that we have a large, and when you look at our delivery gap, and there's also a large amount of deliveries planned during the quarter. Typically, there's quite a bit of cash flow linked to those deliveries, so this should also be a very strong quarter for operating cash flow generation.
Sure, sure. And, just a related question on that is like, now, if you look at this year, you'll, if you, you know, if you increase your sales velocity by 50%, you'd be obviously selling more than, what you have, what you'd be acquiring in terms of, value, right? So in that sense, you know, how should you look at, how should one look at the business development goals, you know, FY 2025 and beyond? Would it be significantly higher than our FY 2024 guidance that we have been giving?
I think it is probably appropriate to come back to you on next quarter and see how the year ends, both from a total sales perspective, what amount of business development is locked in. But I think the overall philosophy of the company is never been time binding or trying to create, you know, year, multi-year supply beyond which we see immediate long visibility, and nothing about that has changed. Of course, at the same time, we don't want to be in a situation where lack of inventory slows down our growth.
So I think getting that balance right is something we'll fine-tune on an ongoing basis, and I think we'll be in a better position to share thinking for next year once we see kind of end of the year, both business development additions as well as total sales for the year, which will give us a good indication. But I would say that certainly for the next couple of years, the portfolio is looking very strong. We do think that even without new business development, you know, this year or next year, and to some extent even the year beyond that, is looking pretty strong from a bookings perspective.
So we don't think that, you know, it's immediate urgency, but certainly as the market is responding so positively to new project launches, we will have to think about replacing inventory perhaps a little bit more aggressively than we, than we would have been six months ago. But we're also seeing quite a amount of opportunity on the BD side. So I still feel that, you know, as and when we decide to increase the pace, the opportunities we do feel are available.
Sure, sure. Just a follow-up bookkeeping question on BD. How much did we spend on land acquisition, you know, pertaining to this INR 8,400 crore of GDV that we acquired?
Sorry, sorry, come again, Kunal?
How much, how much we spent towards land acquisition, you know, especially for this INR 8,400 crore of GDV that we have acquired?
So for nine months, we have spent around INR 4,300 crore of total outflows, which includes the approval and payment part. The exact land payment and approval payment side, I can give you offline.
Sure, sure. Okay. That's fine.
This quarter, the major payments were for three land acquisitions, two options we won in Gurgaon and a land parcel in Bangalore.
Yeah, fair enough. Okay. And my second question was a follow-up on the earlier question on debt levels rising. I mean, we, we have seen in the past, few years, like, now, whenever we have reached, especially with the last two fundraisers that we have seen, like, when we have, you know, reached closer to 0.8, 0.9 times debt to equity, we have, we have raised equity. Would that be something that you would pursue, this time around as well?
That's not currently thinking, Kunal. Again, I think the significant difference is also in the project scale-up that has happened this time and loan scale-up. So I think the operating cash flow, we hope to show very, very strong growth over the next year. So I think, you know, markets are very strong. We never ruled out that idea either. But, as of now, the thinking is that we can deliver already through the portfolio we've acquired, strong growth for the next couple of years, and that operating cash flows we are generating will allow us to sustain that growth on an ongoing basis. You know, I think the cash flow momentum you should see, I think will be quite positive.
Again, you know, the way the sector works is first the business development comes, then the bookings, then the cash flows, then the profits. I think we've clearly done already the business development. I think the bookings is now hopefully very visible. I think cash flow is also starting to become quite visible with, you know, we've been growing cash flows each year by 40%+ for the last two, three years. We expect another good growth year this year and extremely strong growth year our next financial year. So I think, you know, broadly speaking, that focus is still very much on track.
All right. Yeah. Thanks. My last question is to Rajendra. Rajendra, when we look at what will be our unrecognized revenue on our books?
Hardly, because, you know, nowadays we recognize on OC, so most of the revenue gets recognized. Only, you know, 10-15% of the work completion, which is, you know, towards the position, what is left out is to be recognized. Otherwise, most of the projects where OCs are released are recognized.
So what I'm trying to reconcile is, essentially, we have done like almost, you know, INR 40,000 crore of sales in the last four years, and we have recognized about INR 6,500 crore of revenues in the last four years again. I understand a lot of our revenue sales also happened in LLPs. But, you know, still trying to understand or rather reconcile, like what could be the unrecognized revenue, which should be a substantial number, but I'm just trying to reconcile that with the balance sheet, where I see, you know, our current or non-current financial liabilities, which will be essentially customer-
Why don't we, why don't we take it offline, you know, and we can do a reconciliation? Because it will, it will require going project by project, year by year. And like you has rightly said, there are projects which are both into JVs as well as outright, so we have to, we have to see, you know, which got recognized in the last, you know, this year or last couple of years, and accordingly, we will have to work out the revenue recognition.
Sure, I'll take it offline.
On the land payment, just to answer, for this, you know, INR 8,000 crore, we have paid around INR 1,900 crore towards the acquisition of that INR 8,000 crore of GDV.
Sure. Thank you so much.
Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Abhinav Sinha from Jefferies, India. Please go ahead.
Hi. So, congratulations to the team for the strong performance that we have seen on sales. So, my question first is on the launches that we have planned for fourth quarter. What are the, you know, key projects and how good is the visibility there?
Thanks, Abhinav. So, Abhinav, subject to, of course, getting all the approvals, you know, we have a visibility of probable launches in one in Gurgaon, which in Sector 89. Then there is one project which is Sector 146. If you remember the Tropical Isle that we sold, the off plot next to that, we have one more land parcel there. Then in western suburbs Mumbai, we are again in the process of getting all the approvals. This will be a very interesting launch for the Mumbai portfolio in Kandivali. And then something in Bangalore we're looking at in Old Madras Road. So these are like high impact and launches which will create a bigger impact.
Of course, we have backup plans and alternative plans in case any approval falls short of, but we're gunning for at least these big ones. Then we have plotted opportunities here and there. I'm just talking about the bigger ones.
Okay. And similarly, on deliveries also, if you can help us with what we are expecting in 6.5 million or 6-odd million we are planning.
So we have a series of OCs planned in cities like... I mean, we can give you the list of them, but largely we have a couple of OCs planned in Gurgaon, Mumbai. Project names we will share with you offline, but yeah, we have a decent pipeline to get us at 12.5 million sq ft of committed or guided OC calendar. And just to reiterate that-
Sure.
I think we are, I mean, this is already part of the earnings, but projects like, Mamurdi, Mahalunge in Pune, projects like Meridien, parts of Borivali, Gurgaon, aspirationally also Kurukshetra project. So there were series of projects which we are gunning for. Of course, some will come, some may slip to next quarter, but 12.5 million sq ft of, guidance that we gave, we're reasonably confident to deliver and see that.
Okay. You were talking about earlier that the sales value today is much higher, you know, 20%-30% than what we had underwritten. So with that, what are the margins, you know, we are looking at now in some of these projects? For example, the Kandivali one or the Gurgaon Aristocrat, et cetera, that we have launched this year.
Yeah, not those specific projects, but it's safe to say that, you know, the PAT margin is, you know, is a major expansion across most of our projects, which have we've launched in places like Gurgaon, Noida. You know, the western suburbs projects yet to hit, but historically, let's say, if our PAT margin was, say, about 10%, you know, fair to say, like to like, it will be a 15%, 16%, 18% kind of PAT margin. But of course, it will depend upon how the cost inflation is managed. So with some contingency, it is a range at which our PAT margin, of course, there will be some projects will be even higher than that, and there will be some projects within the range that I've mentioned.
Okay. And one quick question on NCR. So in Noida, we have seen some resolution, right, of the stuck projects which was being done by a committee there. So, and some of your projects have, you know, not seen a new launch for a long time. So, I mean, do we see those moving now, or that's another issue?
I think there's some, you know, regulatory-led, you know, resolutions which is impacting the entire market. It seems to be that it's in the final legs of, conclusion, and that will open up a supply for us and some good quality developers, which is pending. But, that being said, we do have some amount of previous, we've not been able to do a big bang new project launch, but customer figures any which ways are hitting, in some of those projects. But yes, there is a big opportunity once the government is able to conclude those, you know, give, give those kind of approvals to all developers. I think we will also have that upside.
Thank you, and all the best to the team.
Thanks. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Parvez Kazi from Nuvama Group. Please go ahead.
Hi, good afternoon, and congratulations for a great set of numbers. So I just have one question. For all the land deals that we have entered, what is the pending land CapEx which we need to incur over the next couple of years?
The pending land payments, including the installment payment, would be around INR 1,100-INR 1,200 crore, plus there would be some FSI, TDR payment. In all, around INR 1,300-INR 1,400 crore is what we are looking at.
... in quarter four. This includes payment towards pending installment of Ashok Vihar also, which is around INR 600 crore.
Sure. Thanks, and all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Parikshit Kanpal from HDFC Securities. Please go ahead.
Hi, Pirojsha, congratulations on a decent quarter. So my first question is on the business development. If you can give us some color on the premium real estate side, especially in South Bombay. So what kind of land opportunities are available for us? And, if we are evaluating those either through joint developments, like in the past we have done with one partner, but, what kind of opportunities do you think can, play out over the next 12 years, 12 months for us?
Yeah, thanks for that. I think there could have been options available in South Mumbai. I think we're looking at a combination of joint ventures with other developers or landowners who have land. Quite a lot of activity happening on the redevelopment side of it, redevelopment. We feel the Godrej brand gives us a lot of, a lot of advantage there in terms of the existing residents being comfortable moving out and coming back in, so that's gonna be a big area of focus for us. There are also, you know, some outright purchase opportunities that we might look at. So I think really the full spectrum of opportunities is available in South Mumbai.
We hope to have some good project additions there over this next few quarters, where we already have seen good response to our first launch in South Mumbai after a while, our project in Mahalaxmi, which is a project in Jacob Circle, that has been, you know, that has gotten into difficulty. That project is going very well. We sold about INR 700 crore worth of inventory there since it was launched four months ago. We hope to launch our project in Mahim later this quarter. So hopefully we can see a good scale-up in the South Mumbai market alongside our overall plans to be the where we could be.
Good. And just confirm the key projects which have been like, lagging behind in terms of launches. So one was Ashok Vihar, which you said you would launch in first half of next year. What about the Worli project? And if you can give us any update on your Bandra project with your partner, Omkar? Any movement there can help us with some color on this.
Yes, actually, it's been very positive movement on some of these Mumbai projects. I think, you know, our learning from this is perhaps that we were a little over-optimistic on timelines on some of the slum redevelopment type of projects, which both Worli and Bandra project are. A lot of tenant movement has happened actually in the last quarter in Worli, so we're increasingly confident that that project being ready to launch in the upcoming financial year. I think Bandra also, there's been quite a lot of movement on the side in terms of understanding the current situation with the partner. We're quite confident that we'll see a lot of momentum in that project during the upcoming financial year, but it's probably not a project that will actually get launched in FY 2025.
But I feel much better that that project will eventually be launched than we were perhaps six months ago, so I think there's positive movement there. It is frustrating to see, you know, some of the bigger projects have seen delays, including Ashok Vihar. We're obviously doing our best to ensure that those are mitigated, and I'm quite happy with the work the team has done to ensure that despite some of these plans getting affected, it hasn't impacted the overall growth of the company both last year and this year, you know, guidance of 60% kind of growth in pre-sales. And I'm quite happy to see that that might be achieved even without these key projects.
Overall, something like Ashok Vihar, while very frustrating, if we are able to launch it over the next few months, as we hope, the delay will actually have benefited given the kind of momentum we've seen in MMR on volumes and pricing. And I think what's great to see is some of these projects we perhaps didn't think of as very critical projects in the overall scheme of things, something like a project in Noida or this recent launch in Gurgaon are actually becoming very meaningful projects for us. If you look at the total scale of the Noida project, which we acquired at auction for about INR 300 crore, we've already sold more than INR 2,000 crore of inventory in the first phase of that project. There's an equal size second phase that we launched this quarter.
So, you know, we hope to, over the project lifetime, get to INR 4,000 crore+ of booking value in that project, which is, we can imagine, with a INR 300 crore on land cost, which creates very healthy margins for the company once that project is delivered. Similarly, if you look at the Gurgaon project, you know, we've already sold INR 2,600 crore. The pricing premium that was initially above the expectation we had for the overall booking value of the project. We still have more than 20% of the inventory in that project. So I think, you know, all of these projects are going to become quite meaningful from a bottom line perspective, but we certainly look forward to launching some of the bigger ones, like, like Ashok Vihar in particular, but also Worli and Bandra.
Incidentally, our Kandivali project is, we hope, going to launch this quarter, and that project is actually quite respectable booking value, significantly larger actually than Worli and Bandra. So we're looking forward to hitting that one off as well.
... Sorry, sorry, which project you said? The last, last project we
It is a project in.
Yeah, yeah. Okay. I got it. Just last one on the. So you mentioned on the on-track launch of 0.6, but I think Gaurav did not mention that in the highly probable launches for this quarter.
So yeah, I think frankly, from a total scale of launch, it's perhaps not quite as big as the inaudible one, or some of the other ones in terms of what we expect for inaudible this quarter. But we certainly do hope to launch that and looking forward to inaudible getting going again.
Okay. Okay. Thank you, Pirojsha and Vishnu.
I'll try to add on projects and BMC.
Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Pirojsha.
Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Ishit Sheth from Anvil Wealth Management. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you so much for taking my question, and congrats to the entire team for very good results. So for Pirojsha, a couple of questions here that I have. If we look at you know, the strategy that you know you led the team on, like, you know, to actually lever up the balance sheet just at the start of an upcycle in the real estate market, I think that is showing you know, significant fruits for you know, our company. Now, what I wanted to understand was that if we look at the last two years, you've always been consistent in saying that our objective is to grow 20% over the medium term when we look at Godrej Properties.
Now, this, I mean, if you look at the first nine months' performance, there has been a stark difference between the volume, sales volume growth and the sales realization growth. A large part of it is because of the way prices have moved up in a lot of geographies, including the NCR. So when we talk about this 20%, because pricing is something which is not in our hands, you know? So when we talk about 20%, is it a large part to do with volume growth that we are looking at, when we talk about this 20% growth over the medium term?
A couple things to point out. One is, I think our volume growth year to date is about 20%. Our volume growth last year was 40%. Another thing I'd just point out is that the pricing growth you referenced is not actually just market pricing growth. It is a complete repositioning of our types of projects to more premium projects. If you look at it, you know, yes, there has also been market price growth, but a lot of the pricing growth previously for this year is actually more premium set of projects coming into our launch pipeline. You know, our project in Gurgaon, for example, we sold at almost INR 20,000/sq ft.
Now, of course, that is much higher than we had underestimated the project at, but it's also even the underwriting was much higher than any previous project in Gurgaon, which is the first project in Golf Course Road. There are similar examples across various cities. So certainly we will be focused on volume growth being strong, but I think there is also a pricing growth opportunity, not just provided by the market, but by us becoming focused on more premium areas. I think in general, this year is probably a good base for that. I don't, you know, we don't want to become an exclusively luxury developer by any means. So we, we, we want to have a right mix of premium projects and mid-income projects, and that will continue.
But I think if you look at this year's kind of project mix, we think it's where we would like to play on an ongoing basis. And therefore, going forward, most of the growth in top line should happen from a combination of volume growth and market pricing growth. But I think if you look at GPL's growth in the last three years, it's both some amount of market pricing growth, but largely volume growth and more premium projects driving that growth so far.
Sure. So then, the second question is that, you know, it just so happened that in the last two years, at the start of the year, you know, we've budgeted or we've guided for some amount of sales as well as, you know, deliveries. And it just happens that, you know, we've exceeded every year substantially. Now, is the team prepared for this kind of execution? Because, you know, if you look at the past, we've not executed at this scale. So are we very well prepared in terms of the execution part of it?
I think it's a great question, and certainly, I think something, you know, the team obviously spends most of its time on. It is going to be a challenge to scale up execution, but one that we've certainly done everything we can to prepare for, whether you look at the structure of the company in terms of how we've set up individual projects and our global team. If you look at the kind of relationships we're trying to build with contractors and elsewhere. So certainly, I think the good work, the team has been doing should be, it should allow us to do this very effectively. And I think it's also true that, you know, Godrej Properties every few years has scaled up very differently from kind of what it looked like three or four years before that.
So I think now with an even more rapid scale-up, we will be very focused on ensuring our operational capabilities matching that. And as you said, also, I think one advantage of focusing a lot on outright owned projects as well as more premium projects is that the scale of operational intensity has not increased quite as much as the overall sales value has. Do you want to?
I couldn't agree more with what Pirojsha just mentioned. And, you know, I think the essence, if you study why Godrej Properties is, is probably twice best to perform in the subcycle, is we're the only company which has something like a branch-led operating model, which is like every site is a P&L for us.
... So we have a very decentralized ecosystem, of course, governance and controls coming from the central, but every site is an operating unit to us, with an operating team with very well-defined targets being measured weekly and monthly on set of KPIs. So yes, the execution muscle, the governance muscle always has existed for us, but just having the right operating model is allowing us to capitalize on the opportunity of scale-up. And, you know, while this looks to be a very strong growth and very delighted to see that, but if you just see from our lens, we have four business units. Each business unit is run by a sort of a CEO with an executive leadership team.
So the problem of execution experience comes when the scale of practice is frankly much more higher, like some of us here to operate in one or two geographies. So I think the potential for us to do better and ensure that each KPI is delivered upon is very new handling for us right now. But of course, this is something which we don't take for granted, and we will keep a very strong track and performing strong monitoring mechanisms to ensure this, yeah.
Got it. Sir, and just one last question I had. You know, at the end of this quarter, we saw the resignation from your uncle, Mr. Jamshed Godrej. Is there any kind of precursor to some kind of a settlement for the Vikhroli land that we can look at for Godrej Properties in specific?
No, I think, you know, we announced the rationale for the resignation along with the announcement, which is that we have a board policy of our directors stepping off the board when they turn 75. My uncle, Jamshed Godrej, turned 75 about a week or two ago, and therefore, at that time, stepped off the board, where we are very grateful for all his contributions to the company over that time. He's, I think, the third director in the past month who would have turned 75 and stepped off the board. So that's the rationale.
Okay, okay. Got it. Okay. Thank you so much, sir. Thank you for taking the questions.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Our next question is from the line of Jahnvi Shah from LIC Mutual Fund. Please go ahead.
Thank you, good morning. Hello?
Yeah, go ahead, please.
Yeah. My question was, can you give us some updates about the Godrej Summit property in Gurgaon, on how, like, what are the works going on, and what is the number of the customers that took up the offer of buyback?
Yeah, the works were on in full swing. We hope to complete them by the end of this calendar year. As of now, we've had about 10% of the customers opt for the buyback option, so we've bought back a little over 100 apartments so far. We expect to see that go to about 200 over the next few months with this current visibility.
Out of the INR 155 crore that are provided for the rent, how much did it cost?
We have spent around INR 20-25 crore till date.
Till date. Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Ritwik Sheth, from One Up Financial Consultants. Please go ahead.
Hi, good evening, and, congratulations on a great set of numbers, sir. So I have just one bookkeeping question. The cash flow statement that you put out in the presentation is the net operating cash flow to our share, or this is before any share to, JV JDA?
It is our share.
It is our share. Okay.
Yes.
Okay. Thank you, and all the best.
Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Manoj from Geometric. Please go ahead.
Am I audible?
Yes, go ahead, please.
Okay. Congratulations, sir, for a great set of retail number and the kind of profitability it gives, like you said, 18%+ something +. My one is a bookkeeping question. What would be our corporate fixed cost for FY 2023, and what would be for FY 2024? Any range, ballpark, any number?
So corporate fixed cost would be generally after, you know, after allocation would be in the range of 3%-4%, you know. But on overall basis, it will be, at a pan-India basis, it will be like a 6%-7%.
Okay, 6%-7%. Okay. And my second question is, like, people are asking about debt equity gearing. So the kind of cash flows the company is, because of this pre-sales and the kind of profitability, this thing, and, even if it being a different accounting method, equity would have changed, how do you think about your BD development with this kind of, misrepresented debt equity? Any ballpark, absolute number of debt you have in your mind, how do you think about it? How do you want to communicate to the shareholders?
Yeah, I think we've mentioned the gearing ratio that of anywhere from 0.5 to 1, 1:1 is broadly our comfort level. 1:1 would be a little under INR 10,000 crore at the moment, so that's roughly the number we look at. But we've also said that, you know, temporarily, if we need to be below or over that, as long as we're not going to bringing it back into that range, we would be comfortable to do so in the short term.
Okay. And my last question is: can you tell something more about the other project, Ashok Vihar? What would be the size and what would the kind of offering it would have, if it is possible?
So I think, you know, of course, we'll have all the information on it once the project is ready to launch, but it will be a large project for us, nearly 4 million sq ft of area. I think pricing in NCR has done very well over the last few years, so we're very confident of that project achieving a good price. I think given the location of the land, the surrounding area, the quality of the plan we have, we hope to make that a blockbuster launch as soon as our approvals are complete.
Okay, and thank you, and best of luck.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question for today. I would now like to hand the conference over to the management for closing comments.
I hope we were able to answer all your questions. If you have any further questions or would like any additional information, we'd be happy to be of assistance. On behalf of the management, thank you once again for taking the time to join us today.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes this conference-