Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Lemon Tree Hotels Limited's earnings conference call. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. If you need assistance during this conference call, please ring an operator by pressing star and zero on your touch-tone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Anoop Poo jari from CDR India. Thank you, and over to you.
Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us on Lemon Tree Hotels' Q1 FY26 earnings conference call. We have with us Mr. Patanjali Govind Keswani, CMD; Mr. Kapil Sharma, CFO; Mr. Vishvapreet Singh Cheema, President; Mr. Sanjay Rai, Chief Revenue Officer; Mr. Saurabh Shatdal, CEO, Fleur; Mr. Mayank Sharma, CFO, Fleur Ltd; and Mr. Niket Sood, Vice President, Commercial Strategy of the company. We would like to begin the call with opening remarks from the management, following which we will have the forum open for an interactive question-and-answer session. Before we start, I would like to point out that some statements made in today's call may be forward-looking in nature and are discretionary to this effect, as included in the earnings presentation shared with you earlier. I will now request Mr. Keswani to make his opening remarks.
Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us on this call. I'll be covering the business highlights and the financial performance for Q1 this year, post which we'll open the forum for your questions and suggestions. In Q1, despite the headwinds faced by the industry due to the geopolitical tensions and COVID scare, Lemon Tree recorded its highest ever Q1 revenue at INR 317.4 crores, where revenue grew 18% compared to Q1 last year. Net EBITDA grew 23% year-on-year to INR 142 crores, translating into a net EBITDA margin of 44.8%, which increased 178 basis points year-on-year. Q1 2026 recorded a gross ARR of INR 6,236, which increased 10% year-on-year, and the occupancy for the quarter stood at 72.5%, an increase of 591 basis points year-on-year. This translated into a RevPAR of INR 4,523, which increased 19% year-on-year.
The company's profit after tax stood at INR 48.1 crores for this quarter, an increase of 139% year-on-year. Cash profit for the company stood at INR 82.3 crores in this quarter, an increase of 51% year-on-year. The tax for the company stood at INR 1,658 crores in Q1 2026, a fall of INR 206 crores or 11%, resuming INR 1,864 crores in Q1 last year. The company has significantly reduced its cost of borrowing over the year to 8.01% in this quarter, as compared to 8.8% in the previous year. Slide 17 of the investor presentation demarcates the gross debt, that is the borrowings from banks and the lease liabilities. The gross debt represents debt on existing properties and new strategic investments that the company has made on new developments. We continue making significant investments in renovations, business development, tech, and renewable energy.
These expenses are incremental in nature, over and above the normal expenses, and are necessary to prepare our company to LT version 2, as highlighted in our five-year plan. During the quarter, 350 rooms were shut for renovation, the majority of which were in Delhi, Hyderabad, and Bangalore, and we should continue to spend on renovation into FY 2027 until the entire portfolio of old hotels has been fully renovated and refreshed. Going forward, we are confident that once all these incremental investments are done with over the next 15 months, then firstly, the occupancy or ARRs or both will go up meaningfully across our entire portfolio, leading to a very significant increase in our own hotels' revenue.
Number two, the renovation and tech cost will also drop significantly down to about 2 %- 2.25% of the total revenue from 6% currently, with the upgradations also leading to a reduction in the repairs and maintenance costs that the company incurs annually. Three, the current investments made in renewable energy have already led to a year-over-year drop in power and fuel costs from 8.7% of revenue to 6.9% of revenue in this quarter, in spite of a 6% increase in occupancy. Over the next 12- 18 months, we will continue these investments to achieve our target of 50% renewable energy in our own portfolio from 40% currently, leading to further savings. On the asset life side, in Q1, we signed 14 new management and franchise contracts, adding 1,273 new rooms to our pipeline, and operationalized five hotels, adding about 400 rooms to our operational portfolio.
As of June 30th, 2025, the total inventory for the group stands at 226 hotels and 18,430 rooms, divided into 10,660 rooms and 116 hotels being operational and the rest in pipeline. Fees from management and franchise contracts for third-party hotels stood at INR 15.1 crores in Q1, an increase of 29% year-on-year. Fees from Fleur stood at INR 21.3 crores, also an increase of 29% year-on-year. Total management fees for Lemon Tree stood at INR 37.4 crores in Q1 FY 2026. Although there have been delays in scheduled openings of managed and franchised hotels due to factors beyond our control, we are very confident of accelerated growth in our management fees going forward. With this, I come to the end of my opening remarks and would ask the moderator to open the forum for any questions.
Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on the touch-tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to answer it while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll wait for a moment while the questions are assembled. The first question is from the line of Archana Gude from IDBI Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Thank you for the opportunity and congrats on a very good set of numbers. Sir, I have two questions. First, in Aurika , Mumbai, COVID has been slightly the occupants are muted to robots, but ARR was slightly subdued. What would be the management strategy on the form level of occupancy? What would you expect ARR to take the position?
Archana, as far as Aurika, Mumbai goes, our primary focus was on taking the occupancy to what we felt was a sustainable ongoing level. Last year, we did only about 46%, and this year, we did about 76%, which means a 30% increase. Typically, you cannot increase occupancy and ARR in a new hotel both at the same time. The normal strategy is build occupancy, and once you hit a sustainable level, then keep adding at higher rates and removing the lower-rate business. We are very much there. There has been nearly a 50% increase in our corporate business with an increase in ARR in the corporate side. The airline business has also increased because, obviously, we needed a certain base occupancy there. We have also focused on the non-negotiated or retail business. That is why we have increased 30% in absolute numbers.
I expect that now going forward, once we've achieved what we would call stability, we will focus now on increasing the rates.
Sure thing. Sir, as in our Aurika, currently, we are just four hotels under pipeline, and we're expected to be open FY 2024 onward. Is that where I'm sure these are the greenfield projects? Is it a conscious decision of the management to keep a check on this addition, or is the depth of supply which takes the risk for us, Aurika?
No, we will continue to focus on building hotels. Right now, we have only two under construction, and one is semi-advanced, which is the hotel in Shimla, which is nearly 100 rooms. The second one, which is 160 rooms in Shillong, we have started construction. That, too, should be ready in the next two and a half, three years. If you wait for a little time, you'll understand our strategy. Right now, there are multiple things balled in the air, but we are going to have a very accelerated growth in our entire portfolio, whether it is owned, leased, managed, or franchised. We are going to try and do it in a very risk-mitigated fashion. I can only give this level of guidance right now.
Sure. That's what my question was, more on the management contract side. I'm sure there are really hotels as for management contracts. Is it that there are lesser options for us which fit the bill of Aurika for us? I'll work my questions, sir.
Aurika, we have right now got four managed Aurikas in the pipeline, which is in Keswani, Rishikesh, Sasan Gir, and Sturat. Obviously, we are going to look at getting more and more. We are very finicky also about the quality of the hotel we would brand Aurika. Here is the problem. In India, there are very few upscale or upper-upscale hotels which are unbranded. Most of the unbranded hotels are in the upper-mid scale, mid-scale, and economy segments. The runway for branding more Aurikas would really come from greenfield or brownfield pockets because most hotels of that quality are already branded by either an international or a domestic brand of high quality.
Right. As in my last question, when I look at the ARR forest of India, it has Amber Corp, Mumbai, blended ARRs. Where does this show [Foreign language] and how should we look at it going forward?
See, the rest of India is basically a combination of, you know, 100, well, not 100, but maybe 60, 70 markets where we are present. Each of them has a distinct characteristic. It's a function of demand-supply in each of those markets. Technically, if I break the rest of India down, there are markets that have grown, you know, 15% in ADR, and there are markets that have grown zero in ADR. It's entirely a function of that micro market. I would not really specifically, you know, be able to give you an idea of why it is. This is a weighted average that you'll see. Obviously, our intent is to increase. If you notice that, if you look at the ARR increase in Gurgaon, it has not been very high. In Bangalore, it has not been very high.
In Mumbai, it is actually just 2% above because, you know, our focus was on stabilizing the occupancy of Aurika. Pune is 7%, and the rest of India is 4%. I'm not unhappy with this because we have achieved this with a significant increase in our occupancy also. I think what one must look at is overall the RevPAR that we have grown by, which is 90%.
Right, sir. Sir, thank you so much on all the website. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Karan Khanna from Ambit Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Good afternoon, and thank you for the opportunity. Congrats on the strong FR outperformance during the quarter despite external headwinds. Firstly, congrats on strengthening the senior management team. If you can just start with some thoughts on the recent senior management appointment and how this will change the growth of it for Lemon Tree moving forward. Also, if you can share some thoughts on your long-term aspirations for the company. As executive chairman, how would you be looking to work closely with Neelendra and Saurabh in helping Lemon Tree move in that direction?
Hi, Karan. Let me explain. You may have also seen that we have said that a committee of directors has been set up in Lemon Tree and in Fleur t o evaluate how we can possibly look at a transfer of assets from Lemon Tree into Fleur through a demerger scheme, and then automatically look at how we can list Fleur . The intent is that Lemon Tree will then become asset-light, a significant shareholder in Fleur , and will focus on management, brand, and technology as a company, which is, I think, quite common to what has been global trends in this space. Fleur will become an independent asset company, a propco. The intent of the leadership chain was to get two very good people who would then run these two companies independently on a day-to-day basis.
If you observe my role in Lemon Tree , since Neelendra will be taking over from October 1st, I have just taken an 18-month extension beyond that as executive chairman, as an executive director. The reason is I obviously want to settle in Neelendra. It is a listed company. Although he has run a very large operation, adidas, he's been with adidas for over 20 years. His experience is interestingly just the kind of experience we need for growing Lemon Tree . However, he needs, I'm sure, some level of hand-holding, which is my job, so that he settles in quickly and understands firstly the industry, which is quite different from the shoe industry or the athletic shoe industry. Number two is to help him navigate how a listed company in India operates, what are the compliances, the regulatory oversight required, and so on.
My focus is transitioning over the executive role to Neelendra and then focusing on strengthening Lemon Tree 's expansion and asset-light growth and providing just generally a high-level strategic oversight and governance through the board. Now, coming to Fleur , since the committee of directors has been set up in both companies, Fleur we hope will become a listed company by the end of next calendar year. Saurabh , who has worked extensively in transactions and in structuring of real estate across multiple asset classes and has great experience in that, Saurabh's role will be driving the asset-heavy growth Fleur lists or even before.
My job then in that is, besides, of course, strategic oversight and long-term governance, to also ensure a smooth transition and to guide and strengthen Fleur's expansion plans through a very structured capital allocation strategy, using technology to identify high-demand areas where there is less risk and potentially high returns. We will be focusing there on asset development or asset acquisitions, leases, and with a very disciplined risk management framework. That's the overview. To support Neelendra, we've got an outstanding set of three colleagues. There is Vishvapreet, who was running Intercontinental Hotels in India. There were 45 such hotels, 8,000 rooms with a very high degree of quality. He is there as president to run the operations and the revenue function.
To support him, there is Sanjay Rai, who was formerly Executive Vice President, Sales and Marketing of Aurika Hotels, who is the Chief Revenue Officer, and his deputy, Niket Sood, who was running revenue for Accor Hotels. I'm pretty confident with these four supported by existing teams, specifically Kapil Sharma, who is now also becoming an Executive Director. I think we will position Lemon Tree, you know, for its version 2. While we said we want to have 20,000 rooms, that is absolutely going to be exceeded in our five-year plan. I'm very pleased that there is this team in place to take this company forward. As far as Fleur is concerned, with the proposed listing hopefully end of next year, we also have Mayank Sharma, who's worked with Lemon Tree for over 10 years.
He is the CFO working with Saurabh and with Sanjeev Jain, who has great experience in development and in projects. I think we are positioning both companies for, as I said, you know, very, very accelerated growth.
Sir, this is quite helpful. Just a follow-up on this. If we talk about the pipeline of assets, right, most of the hotels are asset-light. Currently, with these two pipeline hotels on your balance sheet in Shimla and the one in Sikkim, how should one think about, let's say, future expansion within Fleur? Do we see those announcements coming, let's say, after 18 months or whenever Fleur gets listed independently? Is that the right time to think about more announcements on the asset-heavy front?
No. Once we are going through the scheme, I think you will get a very clear idea of how we intend Fleur to be as a standalone listed company, with its investors who will be focused. We are actually even offering two options for any potential investors. One is the asset-light side of the business, the brand business, which is Lemon Tree, and the asset-heavy side of the business, which is Fleur. I don't think you need to wait another 16 months. I think we will be making enough interesting announcements in the next one year, which will give a very clear idea of where we think Fleur will go and really look at how we can increase this inventory enormously in the next three years.
Sure. My second question is on Aurika, Mumbai, which seems to have done quite well over the last two quarters. Given that we'll start seeing T1 shutting down soon, and you spoke about taking price share as well, help us reconcile how the demand would look like for this property in the seasonally strong two weeks, and what sort of an impact are you expecting going into the shutdown?
See, as you have seen, Karan, we've hit about 76% in Q1. Now, what I want to actually tell everybody who's listening in on this call is that I was happy to see all our other hotels in the listed space had also good results. One reason for that was that last year, it was due to some level of a base effect last year. Last year in Q1, it was very significantly affected due to elections and the heat wave. Normally, you know, Q1 last year should have been at least 5% or 6% better than what it ended up being because of these deflators of demand. In spite of that, this year, it was actually the reverse because Q2 will see a moderation. The base effect of last year, there was no base effect in Q2 last year.
This year, in fact, we have, July has not been so good. All the festivals which affect demand for business hotels or city hotels will happen in Q2 this year. I know I'm not directly answering your question. I just want to put certain things in perspective, which is Q1 last year was very affected by multiple events. Q1 this year was slightly affected by the geopolitical tensions and the COVID scare, but nowhere near as Q1 was last year. In fact, this year, some of the stuff that did not happen in Q2 has flown into Q2 this year. There will be, number one, a moderation. In spite of the moderation, what we are seeing is in, like, where Aurika operates. I'm aware that there will be some shift of demand to Navi Mumbai and so on.
I am very sure that Aurika, Mumbai, and in fact, that micro market of Mumbai, will continue to do 80% occupancies, north of 80%, because if you look at the distribution of demand, that is still growing. Maybe some massive incremental demand will occur in Navi Mumbai with more and more passengers there. Keep in mind, there are 1,800 planes that are going to be operating in India in the next few years. I just see growth in demand. I don't see a loss of demand in Aurika operations.
Given you spoke about the trends in second quarter, how importantly, what's the outlook for?
Yes.
Great. Thank you.
Next question is from the line of Vaibhav Jain from Macquaire Capital. Please go ahead. Mr. Vaibhav, your line has been unmuted. Please go ahead with your question.
Yes. As for this, this is Sameet Sinha here. Question three, Patanjali. It's interesting. We're already pretty close to the 20,000 rooms that you have been talking about for the last few quarters. You kind of resonate our appetite by talking about how you see how we should expect to see some accelerated growth in rooms and pipeline. In that five-year plan that you mentioned, what are we thinking about? Are we thinking about 30,000 rooms, 40,000? Is that within the realm of possibility? That's my first question that I'll ask you. I'll ask a couple of follow-up.
Yeah, it is in the realm of possibility.
Okay. Got it. Got it. Okay. The Lemon Tree hiring was interesting. Can you talk about how his experience with retail and footwear, athletic footwear, fits in with your thought about Lemon Tree? Are we talking about more branding? I'm just going to stop there and let you answer that question.
Okay. Good. eSamet, let me go back for a minute. Lemon Tree is basically morphing into an asset-light company, of course, with a significant shareholding in Fleur. It will be basically focusing on brand, on management, on technology as an enabler, and of course, business development to grow this portfolio. One of the biggest markets, in fact, not one. In my best guess, it is probably the single biggest market today in the world. It is a two to three-star market of unbranded hotels in India. Let me give you some numbers. If I go to Make My Trip and look at their platform, there are roughly 1.4 or 1.5 million rooms in the platform. If I look at the cities where most of these hotels are, they are in about 180- 190 cities in India where about 85% of personal consumption expenditure occurs.
These are cities of typically 500,000 or more population. While some of them are not so well connected, if you look at the plans for Vande Bharat trains, you look at the plans for the growth in airports in India, which we have a list of. If you look at the connections through highways, I was delighted to read that Mr. Gadkari says that our target is now to build 100 km of highways every day. If you put all these together, India is going to be super well connected. I think we are at the early stages of a structural shift of demand into discretionary. Neelendra has been in this specific area of branding, franchising. He was earlier the Senior Vice President, Franchise globally in Germany, for adidas. He has run owned stores. He has run franchise stores. He has a very structured way of looking at managing scale.
If Lemon Tree Hotels is to scale up in an area which is currently totally unstructured, which is about 1.2 million rooms, which are completely unbranded, we need somebody with that kind of a mindset and experience. While he may not specifically have hotel experience, he certainly has the competencies required to lead Lemon Tree Hotels to its next show.
All right. Certainly, some out-of-the-box thinking. Thank you for the explanation. Funny question. If you can talk to us about the rooms that have been renovated over the last year or two, what sort of an increase in occupancy and ARR are you seeing in those rooms?
Before COVID, we used to renovate one-sixth of our hotel rooms every year. It was a structured process by which every six years, a hotel would be renovated, and we would try and close inventory such that it would not significantly affect our ability to fulfill demand. Unfortunately, in 2019, two things occurred. One is we acquired another 1,000 rooms, which was Keys , and we opened three hotels, four hotels in Lemon Tree Premier in Mumbai, Kolkata, Pune, and one Red Fox in Dehradun in our own portfolio. That added another 700 rooms. Our inventory increased from 4,000 rooms - 5,800 rooms. COVID completely disrupted the renovations we would have done to the older hotels, excluding these three, and the renovation we planned for Keys . The next three years, or actually, I should say four years, really went towards surviving COVID and then repairing our balance sheet.
Once all that happened, and of course, opening Aurika, Mumbai and stabilizing Aurika, Mumbai. Once all that happened, we had to do what is called a catch-up. Typically, we spend 1.5% -1 .8% of our revenue every year in this one-sixth of the hotels' renovation. In order to do a catch-up, we had to practically triple the amount invested, though our revenue went up. Still, from a revenue basis, we are spending, I think this year we'll be spending how much, Kapil? About INR 100+ crores?
Yes.
When you see, interestingly, when you see our EBITDA margins, they have shrunk by another 4% because of the investments other than normal because of the investments we are making in technology, in business development, and in renovation. All this will be over by next year, October. We will go back to normal. In the next 15 months, we are going to continue renovating very large numbers of rooms. Now, coming to the specific numbers of rooms, if I think out Aurika, Mumbai and the new hotels pre-COVID, which together account for about 1,400, 1,500 rooms, we have to renovate 4,300 rooms. We have completed about 65% - 70% of that in the last two, two and a half years. By next year, as I said, October, we will have completed all this.
What you will see is a huge expansion in our EBITDA margins because you will have new rooms. Wherever, even in Keys ' portfolio, the first fully renovated hotel was the Keys Dapoli. The ARR went up by, I think, INR 1,300, INR 1,400, and the occupancy went up by 10%. You are going to see it with Keys Whitefield, which is a large hotel. It is 220 rooms. I think we've renovated about 170 rooms, and we will finish the other 50 in the next one year. Trivandrum, Kochi, are undergoing renovation. Visakhapatnam will undergo renovation, and Ludhiana is complete. That was the Keys ' portfolio. As far as the rest of the hotels go, we looked at, out of those balanced 3,500 rooms, excluding the Keys' portfolio, we really looked at where should we put in the maximum money to get the maximum return.
Mumbai, sorry, Delhi, Hyderabad, and Bangalore were identified as where we have large inventory hotels which needed this uplift. I think we have completed about 70%, or no, not 70, 80% in Delhi. We have completed, I think, about 60%-7 0% in Hyderabad, where we have about 700 rooms, and we have completed about 30% in Bangalore. This is going to just go nonstop. At any given time, you know, 350 rooms are stuck. We typically take two to three months to renovate them. On an ongoing basis, say in six months, we would renovate, you know, this year maybe 1,200 rooms or 1,300 rooms, and this will happen next year also. Then it will entire in your portfolio.
Got it. Thank you very much.
Interestingly, just let me add, if you look at the increase in ARRs also, it is direct, you can see directly it occurring. For example, Delhi, now that we have managed to renovate so many rooms, the ARR went up 15%. Hyderabad, 19%. You can see the direct increase. When we finish, one of three things will happen. In certain markets where demand, where we felt from a brand perspective, we needed to upgrade the rooms anyway, we did not spend as much, because we just wanted to ensure that the brand quality standards were maintained. In some markets where we felt there was a possibility of significantly increasing ARR and occupancy, we spent double the amount per room. It's a mix and match. The intent is ultimately to increase RevPAR and increase guest satisfaction.
Got it. Thank you very much.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Vaibhav Malin from Yes Securities. Please go ahead.
Hi, Tim. First of all, congratulations on a very strong set of numbers. My first question was on our management contract pipeline. We have a very strong pipeline, and as just now mentioned, there's a potential to reach 30,000 - 40,000 rooms in the long term. Do you think there can be an execution challenge while adding such an aggressive amount of inventory, especially given many industry participants are highlighting that there are challenges on the manpower front? Do you think that can pose a challenge in the future, and would that affect the flow through to EBITDA? That's my first question.
Vaibhav, let me go back. Challenges are always there when you are talking hypergrowth, and we want hypergrowth. You notice the rate of signings is much more than the rate of openings currently. Surely, in the next couple of years, the reverse is going to happen. The openings are going to also accelerate because about 70% - 75% of the hotels we are signing are brownfields or greenfields. We are very keenly aware that we need trained staff for this. We are trying to combine an approach which is both technology-oriented and identifying the future leaders of all these new hotels within our system. That process is ongoing. We have multiple learning and development programs for general managers, for the hydro department, and so on and so forth.
While there will be challenges based on our rate of growth, we have also grown 30% a year or, I think, more than 30% a year for the last 10-1 5 years. Keep in mind that we were 1,000 rooms 12 - 13 years ago. I think we are quite familiar with that challenge. Now, as far as the flow-through goes, there is no risk to the flow-through. Management fees will keep accelerating. As I had specified in our Lemon Tree version 2 when we said it would be 20,000 rooms, including pipeline, by 2028, I think we will achieve that in the next six months, by the way. That question that I was asked earlier, I think, by Karan or Sameet, 30,000, 40,000, it could be any of these numbers. I hope, of course, it is much more than what we have targeted.
We are quite sure we'll be able to manage the growth. There will be hiccups. Our entire approach was, first, let's finish with our own portfolio. Let's get it cleaned out, renovated, fully staffed, improve the occupancies. As you can see, it is happening. Improve the ARR still more once the renovation is over. Our entire focus will be on the asset-light growth. Once Fleur lists, also on the asset-heavy growth, where Fleur will raise capital and also go debt-free, I'm sure, in the next one and a half years. Basically, the way I see it is Lemon Tree will be more or less debt-free and another as a goal in the next 18 months. It will also have a large, I'm pretty sure Fleur will raise a large amount of capital.
It will expand in the asset-heavy sides, and we will focus on managing hotels across the spectrum in Lemon Tree .
Got it, sir. My second question was on your ties with BCG for revamping your technology website and your loyalty program. Has that exercise been completed, and have you started seeing any material benefits in terms of higher bookings from your website or from the benefit of your loyalty program? Can you share some color on that?
The BCG assignment was towards digital transformation, and it was building a foundation on using technology to enable hypergrowth. Once BCG finished, it was more of a strategic-level intervention. They moved on, and then we had actually moved this entire IP we created into a 100% subsidiary of Lemon Tree called Cookie Fox Solution, which is now fully managed. We've got data scientists. We've got, you know, user experience engineers. We have people, including two people, amusingly, from BCG themselves. We also have Ernst & Young working with us in this. We have created a bunch of products. They are what we call MVP, means minimum viable products. Some of them have been launched in revenue management. Some have been launched at early stage in loyalty, but it's an ongoing process.
My best estimate is that the fruits of these entire investments in technology, which will include customization, personalization, loyalty program, predictive revenue management rather than, you know, prescriptive revenue management rather than predictive, using chatbots, agentic AI, so on and so forth, which will help also reduce scaffolding and reduce training costs, all these will start rolling out, I think I'm told, from October this year, going forward into September next year. The MVPs have been prepared. We are piloting it at multiple hotels. In fact, at any given time, two, three hotels have one MVP in place. We are refining it. I'm pretty sure that in the next 12 months, as far as our loyalty program goes and our revenue management, we'll be best in class. Now, loyalty, I think we have already increased the number of members. We are enrolling them very fast.
I think we have about 2 million members now.
2.1 million.
Two point one million members already in the loyalty program. Our repeat usage is about 43%, 44%. That's very encouraging for us because what it really means is that if you open a new hotel, we are very rapidly able to move customers there who are part of our, who are repeat members and make that hotel drink even very quickly. That, I think, is an attractive proposition for any hotel owner from the asset-light side. All this is a work in progress. I think you will see a completely new Lemon Tree and Fleur in the next 15 months.
Got it, sir. Lastly, on Keys' portfolio, we have seen stable quarter-on-quarter numbers for Keys. I believe this is on the back of benefits of the renovated portfolio. I just wanted to check what kind of headroom do you see from the current levels of 53% occupancy and around INR 3,800 ARR in the Keys' portfolio itself? What is the contribution of overall renovation expense we are expanding into Keys' portfolio currently?
Keys is 900 rooms, 930 rooms. We have identified high-value investments specifically in Keys Pimpri Pune, which is over. We spent INR 10 crore-INR 12 crore. We have already spent, I think, INR 10 crore- INR 12 crore in Keys Whitefield, and we still need to spend another INR 8 crore-INR 10 crore. We have done completely renovated Ludhiana at INR 3 lakh per room. If I split the Keys portfolio, the Bangalore and Pune portfolio is about 500 rooms, and the other 500 are in, 400 and something are in these other markets. What we are really doing is in the markets like Trivandrum, Kochi, Visakhapatnam, and Ludhiana, our intent was to, because the hotels were so tired and old, our intent was from a brand standards perspective to just renovate them to minimum standard at INR 3 lakh a key.
The others, we would spend INR 8 lakh- INR 10 lakh a key, which is like Pune and Whitefield. The average would be INR 5 lakh across 900 + keys. We would spend about INR 45 crore-INR 50 crore over three years in the Keys portfolio. What is our intent? Our intent is, and I have said this before, that we want to take the EBITDA of Keys to between INR 60 crore-INR 80 crore , which means that we will need to take the EBITDA margin to about 50%, which means we need a revenue of INR 140 crore-INR 160 crore in Keys. That would require, if you work back, our occupancy is moving to 75%-80%, and the ARR is moving towards Red Fox levels, which is INR 4,500- INR 5,000. Keys Whitefield, the renovated part, is already doing INR 4,500 ARR. The Pimpri is doing INR 5,000 + ARR, I think INR 5,500.
That is why you're seeing this gradual shift in Keys. This EBITDA doubling is nothing. The base was very low. Our intent is basically to make INR 60 crore-INR 800 crore out of Keys by next year as a run rate.
Perfect, sir. Thank you so much for the comprehensive answers and all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Prashant Biyani from Elara Capital. Please go ahead.
Thank you for the opportunity. Sir, a question on renovation again. Sir, by when are we going to complete the renovation for LTP HITEC City, then Whitefield, Delhi Airport, L T Gatchibowli, Keys Select, and Keys Select Hosur and Whitefield?
Okay. Sorry, I didn't write it down. Let me start with Lemon Tree, Delhi. Lemon Tree Premier Delhi will be done by somewhere in the middle of next year, so maybe July, August. We have also renovated all the public areas, including the lobby, restaurants, banquets, etc. Now we get to Red Fox Delhi, which is also a very high-earning hotel. I think we have done about 60%. This will soon get over by next year. We are looking at converting it into a Lemon Tree hotel because our colleagues in our revenue department say that if you rebrand it Lemon Tree, the possibility to increase rates by 15% - 20% will become very visible or likely. Next, we go tso Electronic City in Bangalore. We are going to rebrand it a Lemon Tree Premier. Renovation is underway, but this will take about a year and a half to two.
We will renovate 75% of the hotel by next year. As far as Hyderabad goes, there were two issues. One was the renovation of Hyderabad. In public areas, we have completed 80% of that. Then was the rooms. I think we have done about 60% - 70% of the rooms, and I expect that we'll finish it all by next year. Red Fox Hyderabad is also likely to be converted into a Lemon Tree hotel. It is also, I think, 50% renovated. We have to finish the rooms and the public areas as at Lemon Tree Hotel. Again, we will look at significantly raising the average rate once it is rebranded. Lemon Tree Gatchibowli is going to be completed by 18 months. It has very high demand.
We are not sure, because of the room size, whether we will call it a Lemon Tree Premier or retain it as a Lemon Tree Hotel. Either way, it will happen in the next 18 months. As far as the Keys Hosur goes, this will continue. I think, as I said, 80%-9 0% of the portfolio would be renovated. Some parts like Keys Hosur would probably go into early 2028 calendar. The point is the major investments in renovation will be over by next year. After that, we will revert back to that one-sixth of the hotels, and a huge drop in renovation expenses by about, I think, what would it be? It will be about 3% of revenue or 3%- 3.5% of revenue.
Sir, is there some delay in renovation due to high demand? Because previously, we were about to complete major renovations by H1 of this year.
Never that. I don't think that was ever the case for us. I always wanted to take three years. See, it's a balancing act. Like, I'll give you an example. Red Fox Hotel, we are renovating, I think, 30 rooms at a time. It takes about two and a half months. Now, when we released those 30 rooms about two, three weeks ago, suddenly, there was a spike in demand for Red Fox. We said, "Okay, we'll defer it for two weeks, and we'll try and do a catch-up." It's a balancing act. Sometimes we defer renovation when we have a very large block or some very exciting demand opportunities. By and large, we obviously look at the trade-offs. Whether if I delay renovation, you know, will it go into season? Will I have a loss there versus what is my benefit here? This is basically displacement.
In revenue management, it's called displacement. What am I displacing by doing this now versus later? I think we are quite, we've done a pretty good job. I must say our renovation team has, you know, generally always delivered on time.
You have announced key management changes. What could be the flow-through of events for the parent entity as well as for Fleur, which can happen between now and lifting of Fleur? One thing which you highlighted was a slew of signings for Fleur. Apart from that, anything else?
See, the thinking is very simple. Prashant, let me say, we own, I'm just speaking, this is speculative, but let's assume we own 60% of Fleur. Our management fee income is typically 17% - 20% of the EBITDA. When we own 60% of Fleur, it means we really get about 66% - 68% of the economic return. The 7% - 8% more we get is in management fees from the other owner, so to speak. To put it another way, we earn $100 of EBITDA. We take fees of $17 . The remaining $ 83 is distributed to the shareholders, which is 60% Lemon Tree and 40% to AVC. The larger the amount of capital we raise in Fleur, while our shareholding may come down, our economic interest increases disproportionately. It is really a return on equity that we get through management fee contracts in Fleur itself.
Obviously, it is in the interest of both Fleurs. Our fees, by the way, are very, very common. I mean, are very standard. Whether it is Lemon Tree or any other management company, the fees are generally at the same level. It is not that we charge disproportionate fees, but our view is that the more we dilute in Fleur and the larger the capital raised, and assuming it is deployed successfully, the management fees of Lemon Tree from Fleur will explode. It is already about, it is this year, it is over, it will be over, it will be INR 150 crore this year. There will be a time when it could easily be, if we do what we want to do, then it could be INR 300 crore -INR 400 crore just from Fleur in the next three years.
Sure. Sir, thank you for answering the question and congrats to the new management team at both Lemon Tree and Fleur.
Thank you, Prashant.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Pratik Oza from Systematix Group. Please go ahead.
Yeah, I said thank you for the opportunity. Just one question first on your international strategies. I guess in the previous call, you had stated that your international strategies are operational, which is targeting Indian diaspora. First thing, could you share some learnings from your first international foray? How is that company performing? Is it serving as a successful template for future ventures?
Oh, yes. Pratik, it is doing very well. We have a hotel in Dubai. To give you an idea, 6 million Indians go to Dubai every year. SIx million. I was reading, I don't know, was it today or yesterday in one of the financial newspapers, maybe Economic Times or Mint, that last year, in 2024, I think the government meant, there were 9.9 million arrivals into India inbound. They said 3 crore, 30 million Indians traveled overseas. Here is a very interesting statistic. The number of foreign guys who come into India, and this includes, I presume, Indian diaspora, is one-third the number of Indians who go outside of India. If we, you know, it makes complete sense for us to follow where Indians go. We have a hotel in Dubai which is doing very well. I think now we have a hotel in Nepal also.
Yeah, we have, you know, so we are going in the neighboring countries where there are a large number of Indians and where we feel we can provide a revenue uplift to those hotels by capturing loyalty members of our program, who travel to these cities. The long answer which I've given you is that it makes complete sense for us to go where Indians go, without losing focus on capturing, obviously, the Indian market in India.
Got it. Got it, sir. The second question is, I think from the other expenses which I am seeing, there is this delta fit for INR 9 crore. Just consider a breakdown of this. I mean, how much of this would be a discretionary spending, like marketing for launch of instrumental 2.0 and new website versus a non-discretionary or discretionary cost pressure? Just wanted to get an idea on this.
We are doing two things. Let me explain which are also one-off. Our technology OpEx is pretty significant right now. This year, it will be INR 10 crore alone or INR 12 crore. During COVID, in order to ensure we did not lay off anybody, as a company, we took a call that the top 20% of the company would pay a big salary cut in order to enable us not to lay off anybody. It started with me. I took a 100% cut. Senior leaders and colleagues like Kapil and so on took 75%, 66%. At different times, based on COVID, over two, two and a half years, there was a very large amount of salary cuts from the top leaders. Basically, this year, we are returning it to them. It is a part of the other expenses that you are seeing.
Our intent is very simple that, by the end of this year, more or less, we will have returned to every employee of our company whatever money we deducted from them in those two and a half years of COVID. This is an extraordinary one-off expense. Next year onwards, you will see it fall back to normal. Does that answer your question?
Yes, yes, yes. Thank you. Thank you so much, sir, for answering my question. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Jinesh Joshi from PL Capital. Please go ahead.
Thanks for the opportunity. Sir, my question is on Aurika . I think you mentioned in the opening remarks that there was a 50% increase in the corporate business this time around. The contribution from airlines has also increased. In that context, the share of negotiable business has increased. Do you foresee any kind of challenges in increasing the rate from here on? Also, if you can share what was the contribution of negotiable business in Q1 and Q2 and the ARR for Aurika ?
I don't want to get into specifics because it is competitive information. I'll give you an overview on it, Jinesh. We did 512 rooms per day, which is 76.6% occupancy in Aurika in Q1 this year versus 307 rooms a day, which was 45.8% last year. That is why I said it increased by 30 percentage points. Actually, it increased by nearly 31 percentage points. When I look at the increase in occupancy, the increase in occupancy was roughly 65% through the negotiated business, which is, say, 20 percentage points, and 35% through the non-negotiated business, which is 10 percentage points. These percentage points were on the entire inventory. The 30% increase was 20% because of negotiated and 10% because of non-negotiated. Now, when you increase negotiated business, the increase in rate you get is very, is, is, is markable.
In the non-negotiated, we were focusing basically on filling the hotel during times when rooms were not full. Aurika Mumbai is already demonstrating the characteristic which many of our business hotels have, which is in the weekdays it goes full, in the weekends it goes light, which is why the average of 76 is, is an average. For example, on a Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, the hotel is full. Then on a weekend, it could be 60% or 50%. Our target is that when demand is light from the negotiated side of the business, which is specifically corporate and some travel trade, we look at filling it through OTAs and through our own website and our other direct channels. That does not enable us to increase prices in a low demand period. Broadly, that is the current situation.
Understood. Sir, if I heard you right, you also mentioned during the call that you have about 2.1 million loyalty members. I think in the last quarter, this figure was approximately 1.5 million. We have quite visibly seen a considerable jump over here. Can you share what proportion of your business basically comes from the loyalty members?
Here is what we discovered. During COVID, a lot of our systems and processes became more disfactory, less managed. We found that about 44%-45% of our hotels' occupancy is repeat members. Of them, only 65% are loyalty members. One-third are actually using us repeatedly but have not been enrolled. What you are seeing is a catch-up. In the last, in fact, three or four months, Niket came on board about three or four months ago. One of the challenges he took on board was that he would focus on increasing enrollment. He and Vishvapreet and our leaders and operations have been focusing across all our hotels across India, including Mayank, on enrolling more and more with a specific focus on enrolling anybody who has already stayed with us before. This 2.1 million number is nothing.
In fact, we think, based on our database, we could hit 3 million in the next one year. They will all be enrolled.
Understood. One last question from my side. If I heard you right, you mentioned that in FY 2026, our renovation expense will be about INR 100 crore, and some parts of renovation are expected to flow through in FY 2027. Can you call out what that number can be?
This year, renovation is of two parts. One is OPEX, one is CAPEX. Most of the renovation of our non-Keys is OPEX. Most of the renovation of the Keys for a year is CAPEX because there we are doing things of a long-term nature because these hotels are so run down. Typically, I think 60%- 65% of our total expenditure is OPEX, and the balance one-third is CAPEX. This year, actually, we will spend close to INR 130 crore. Our OPEX would be, I would reckon, about INR 80 crore or 90, 80 to INR 90 crore. I'm giving you rough numbers, huh? Next year, it will probably be about 70% of this. After that, it will drop to about INR 20 crore a year in OPEX, INR 20 crore-INR 30 crore.
Got it, sir. Got it. Thank you. Thank you so much and all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Sumant Kumar from Motilal Oswal Financial Services Ltd. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, Vaibhav. My question is, when we see the growth expectancy, we are adding rooms through management fee track. Do we plan for adding rooms through lease and rental basis also?
See, that is going to be a part of the Fleur mandate. Fleur is going to, let me go back for a minute. See, when we manage a hotel, we take 17% of EBITDA. If we franchise a hotel, we take 10% of EBITDA. If we lease a hotel, we typically put in 10%, 20% of the capital value, and we take 50%, 60% of the EBITDA. When we own a hotel 100%, then obviously we take 100% of the EBITDA with 100% of the risk. Fleur's mandate will be to focus on at the right value building, buying, or leasing hotels. Lemon Tree's will only be to manage or franchise. We will not, Lemon Tree will not lease hotels once you're, you know, the Fleur demerge.
Currently, whatever the pipeline we have, are we going to excel or increase our lease and rental model in the coming years under Fleur? What is the mix currently?
Yeah, 100%. See, the only thing is, by the way, you may have noticed, Sumant, that we decided this year, this quarter, to explain what is, you know, I noticed that some analysts were saying our debt to EBITDA is some, you know, a very large number. I think they were just blindly adding the lease liability. Actually, the real number one should look at is our free cash flow. The fact is that, you know, our debt, only 60% or 65% of our debt is bank debt. The other is lease liability. If we go forward and keep leasing hotels, then under the new accounting standards, 116, you will see a big increase in our lease liability, the depreciation and interest that will also be applied on it. This is all non-cash. This will go to Fleur.
The advantage of a lease I have personally found since we have a few leased hotels is we take the capital risk we take is anywhere from 5%- 20%. In some cases, if you lease a building which is a shell, then the capital risk we take is 50%. Whatever the amount of capital we put, our share of EBITDA is disproportionately higher. We have hotels, I can tell you, in our system where we have put in INR 1 crore or INR 2 crore, like Lemon Tree Banjara Hills. I think we put INR 2 crore too.
INR 2 crore.
We get INR 5 crore a year out of it, so it makes INR 10 crore. We take INR 5 crore and, or INR 6 crore, I think. It is obviously a very attractive model for us. The owner is interested in, you know, what we try and negotiate is the least possible minimum guarantee. We are happy to share the upside of revenue share. This is the way we see leases. We are going more and more aggressively towards revenue share and less and less towards minimum guarantee because, as I said, it adds to our liabilities or appears to add to our liabilities. That is how Fleur will go forward. In fact, that is one of Saurabh's strengths, the leasing transactions he has done across India.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Rajiv Bharati from Nuvama Bank. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, I'm Rajiv . Thanks for the opportunity. With regard to Aurika, Mumbai, a couple of years back, you had called out that your EBITDA margin would not move in tandem with your occupancy. I just want to get a, if you can call out, what is the EBITDA margin for that asset currently?
It is about 60%.
Sir, with regard to Keys, we see that, you know, incremental margin is close to 100% on a YoY basis. Pre-COVID, we used to see that the non-room revenue used to be, you know, close to 35%, 40%. It is now 20% odd. Is there a plan to go back to those levels, or are these, let's say, the new levels strategically worth?
This is the new levels because, see, a heck of a lot of customers today order food from Swiggy, Zomato, you know, so one and so forth .
Our focus is to actually maximize RevPAR. If you maximize RevPAR, the flow-through is, as you can imagine, Rajiv it is 85%, 90%. If I look at these, and I say that the total revenue in Q1 was INR 24.4 crores, typically the revenue for a full year is about four, about five times the Q1 revenue because of seasonality. If this number is an indicator, then Keys, based on Q1, should do INR 120 crores. If that EBITDA margin becomes 40%, it should do 40. I want to be clear, this is just an estimate by me. It's not a guidance. The EBITDA margin will be north of INR 40 crores there. When we finish the entire renovation, what I'm interested in at Lemon Tree Hotels is what is the EBITDA we do.
I'm not particularly bothered about how much S&P revenue we do because we are not really a five-star kind of company. This is more of a mid-market hotel company, and the main focus is to maximize RevPAR and therefore maximize EBITDA and therefore maximize return on capital, providing your asset turn is right.
With regard to this, retail rate was as negotiated rate. Now, again, the retail rate is lower than the negotiated rate. This used to be the reverse sometime back. Is there a cash flow which is going to happen on this space? Because this proportion has gone higher, it will take some time.
I'll tell you what is happening. Our focus earlier, we had a focus on building reach and changing the mix. See, our long-term strategy remains the same, which is as more and more cohorts of Indian customers move into what we would call the consuming segment in India, consumers of branded mid-market hotels, then presumably there would be an increase in demand and therefore an increase in pricing. However, what's happened is a lot of corporate customers today book through OTAs, for example. Like MyTrails or MakeMyTrip, I mean, there are multiple such channels through which they bid. When we are defining it as OTA, actually, it is also our corporate customers. One reason is this.
The second reason is our focus is actually on filling our values, which is more in we found that because we've increased our corporate and at good rates, we are able to fill the weekdays, but we are not able to fill the weekends. To get the weekends, you have to focus on staycations. You have to focus on nice offers, so on and so forth, in order to bring customers to you at the time when you need them. One reason is also, and I think it varies year on year. This time, it is a bigger focus on filling our trucks. After all, if we have grown from, if you look at our growth of occupancy, it is partly led by some weekend demand growth, and that is driven by lower prices. This is an overview. I'm sure there are many reasons for this, which we look at.
I'm trying to give you an overview of why this is happening. The good news for me is that overall, the ARR grew 10%. The negotiated business ARR grew 9%, and the non-negotiated, which is OTA, LT, and other FITs, grew 10%.
Yes, thanks a lot for this meeting. All the best.
Thank you. For the next questions, let's have the line of Jai Chauhan from Trinetra Asset Managers. Please go ahead.
Hello. Am I audible?
Yes, you are audible.
Good afternoon, sir. Thank you for this opportunity. I just have one question. Where I can see company focus is clearly on expanding the core hotel brands, could you share your long-term perspective on growing kind of villas and alternative accommodations?
Currently, I am not convinced that we have the, see, we are in the mid-market. Villas, alternate accommodations is an asset class where we don't personally currently have the competence. We don't want to lose focus. We are very clear. We want to focus from two and a half stars to four and a half stars. That means basically mid-scale, upper mid-scale, and upscale. We think the opportunity is so big in India that we don't want to go and start dabbling in other areas or pivoting our business model. For the time being, I do not see us at all focusing here. Though I know that many people are, we would not.
Right, sir. Understood. What I understand from a local market perspective, like for example, Uttarakhand, there are some type of asset structure, like resorts work well there. This is something that I've heard. What are your views on it?
Resorts, certainly descritional travel into vacation, leisure, all that is taking is doing well. We don't own hotels there. In that, see, we have very few owned hotels in the leisure segment. A majority of our managed hotels, or at least 50%, are in the leisure segment. We are interested in it. We are interested in managing resorts. We are interested in managing any vacation destination. Other than Aurika, Udaipur, or Goa hotels, and what we are building in Shimla, we are not currently looking at putting any capital at resorts currently.
Got it, sir. Understood. That's from my side, sir. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Nikhil from Kizuna Wealth. Please go ahead.
Hi, Raju. Thank you for giving me the opportunity and congratulations on the group set of numbers. My first question is, like how much debt are we targeting to reduce this year?
If we miss the year, we will be debt-free. Otherwise, we reduce by INR 250 crore a quarter.
Understood. That's great to hear. Sir, when we are transferring over assets to Fleur, will there be any kind of consideration on the cash basis or any kind of stock whenever our percentage of shareholding increases in Fleur?
That is subject to the committee of directors. There is one committee of directors in Lemon Tree, one committee of cirectors in Fleur. If you are patient like I am being, then you will get to know, I think, in a few months. That is my next call.
That's great to hear. Also, like I know a managed hotel network. Sir, how is the occupancy in areas in that space, in that segment?
If you look at the business hotel side, it is similar to us. If you look at the leisure hotel side, it is a little lower.
Okay, sir. That's it from my side. Thank you for giving the opportunity and congratulations. All the best.
Thank you. Thank you, Niket.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Sucrit D. Patil from Eyesight Fintrade Pvt Ltd . Please go ahead.
Hi, good afternoon. Am I audible?
You are good, sir. You are. Good afternoon.
Yes, hi. My name is Sucrit Patil. Good afternoon. I have Lemon Tree is thinking about earning over the next two years, especially with the mix of owned and managed properties. How are you planning growth between new geography segments or formats that may not have been forth in your plan before? If some of the, let's say, Tier 2 or Tier 3 cities or the premium category do not play out as you had planned, what kind of contingencies or backups do you have in place to protect margins and maintain growth momentum? Yes, thank you.
Sucrit, to Tier 2 and 3, we are not investing capital, just FYI. Our general approach to capital allocation is we will invest capital where we see high demand today and where we see a return on capital which meets our hurdle rate. We are happy to compete in an area where there is high demand and high supply. We will not go and invest in markets where there may be future high demand which has not yet materialized. If it comes, then we will be happy to consider investing there. Capital allocation will be very disciplined. It will be in markets where we feel with a competitive advantage and our modes of expenditure and so on, cost control, we feel we will be able to give a return basically of capital once it stabilizes of 20%. We are very, very clear on that.
Now let's come to Tier 2 and Tier 3. The way we look at it is we have an opportunistic approach and a strategic approach. Opportunistic is any owner who comes to us, and right now, let me say, I'm told there are 800, 900 hotel owners who are in talks with our business development team. Obviously, there will be drop-offs at different levels. We have a very healthy pipeline of potential growth in the asset lines, right? We do not have such a healthy pipeline in the growth of franchise, which is what we are wanting to activate now, which are smaller hotels across many Tier 2, Tier 3, Tier 4 cities.
As far as strategic growth goes, as I had mentioned earlier, there are 180- 200 cities which have currently high connectivity or will have high connectivity in the next two, three years based on the plans that have been announced. These cities are where we want to have a hotel, although not our own hotel, but a hotel that we manage in order to make customers familiar with the Lemon Tree brand across India. Our general view has been that once we put a hotel in a city, the number of customers from that city who travel to other cities where we have hotels being increased. If, you know, before we had a hotel in Calcutta, we were getting 100 guys from Calcutta every day. After we put up a hotel in Calcutta, we were getting 200 guys every day staying in our hotel.
Basically, it's a visibility and network strategy we are focusing on. We will basically drive it through an asset-light strategy.
Okay.
Does that make sense?
Yes, yes, yes. Just to close the loop, would I be right to assume from what you have just given through a guidance that a franchise contracts model would be in the cards of Lemon Tree i n the next coming quarter?
No. It will be our focus forms for Keys brand, not the Lemon Tree brand, which are more Keys will be a soft brand. If you know, as you have noticed, many of the listed companies in the brand space have launched what are called soft brands. Interestingly, even Marriott has launched a soft brand called Series. Most of the hotel companies of some scale operating in India have launched soft brands. This is to cover for those hotels that have been built by individuals. There are 1.2 million such rooms which have been built tiny. That means it's 30 - 40 rooms. It does not make sense to manage them because while you manage, you get 17% of EBITDA. If you franchise, you get 10%, 11% of EBITDA, and you don't have to actually do anything more than just distribute and sell that product.
When you have disparate hotels, you cannot brand them coherently. You have to have a soft brand which makes a commitment on quality, security, safety, and hygiene with the umbrella brand of Lemon Tree . It will not be branded Lemon Tree. Yes, we want to hypercharge that part of the business and go after franchise branding, franchising in a very big way. That's one of the reasons somebody asked me earlier. That is one of the strengths that Neelendra has.
Thank you very much for your guidance. Best of luck for all your.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Vikram from Vikram Securities. Please go ahead.
Hi, Raju. Hello. Namaste. Congratulations on our great set of numbers. Just curious about how the shareholding will look after the demergers are done. How much of Fleur will Lemon Tree hold? What is the plan on the listing? Will you demerge it first, or will you get a one-on-one stock for each share? I think the last time we have spoken about this, you had said there would be a massive value unlocking. I'm just curious on how the shareholding will look like and how what the.
That is, again, Vikram, that is more the road. That is why we have set up two committees of directors in Lemon Tree and in Fleur. I think clarity will come once they come back with their recommendations. Obviously, we are looking at, we have said, as a potential demerger. How it works, how will the demerger work is something that they have to come back with their recommendations to the board too. Once it is approved by the board and we find such a scheme, then I think everybody will be aware of it. You know, this will answer your question then.
Sir, do we expect some sort of announcement this financial year?
Definitely.
Oh, fabulous. Lastly, sir, what can the, what will the Fleur be asset-heavy business maximize out like in terms of rooms? Will they ever keep expanding, or will they top out at 4,000, 3,000 rooms?
Fleur already has 6,000. Our intent is obviously to cross 10,000, 15,000. If it happens, you will see it.
Okay, thank you. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Bharat Gianami from MoneyControl Pro. Please go ahead.
Thank you for the opportunity. Just one clarification. Before your listing happens, any property that we are set to acquire on the own or lease basis, everything under wholly owned Lemon Tree or restricting 40% Lemon Tree and Fleur? I just want to clarify about that.
I think it will be, I mean, it is subject to a weekly discussion with boards. I would expect it could all be insured.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
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. Over to you, sir.
Thank you once again for your interest and support. We'll continue to stay engaged. Please be in touch with our investment relations team for any further details or discussions. We look forward to interacting with you soon and answering many of these questions also very soon. Thank you.
Thank you. On behalf of Lemon Tree s, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect your line.