Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to Macrotech Developers Q4 FY23 earnings conference call hosted by Antique Stock Broking. 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. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Biplab Debbarma from Antique Stock Broking Limited. Thank you, and over to you.
Thank you, Ryan. Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the Q4 FY23 earnings call of Macrotech Developers hosted by Antique Stock Broking. Today, we have with us the management of Macrotech Developers, represented by Mr. Abhishek Lodha, Managing Director and CEO; Mr. Sushil Kumar Modi, CFO; Mr. Prashant Bindal, Chief Sales Officer; and Mr. Anand Kumar, Head IR. Without further ado, let me hand over the call to Mr. Lodha. Over to you, sir.
Good afternoon, everyone. Thank Thank you for joining us for our earnings call. I hope all of you and your families are well. Exactly two years ago, we got listed with the company in a fragile state amongst the uncertainty of the second wave of COVID. Over the last two years, we have seen the pandemic, and hopefully that's now behind us. We have thereafter seen the consistent recovery in the Indian economy. We have also seen interest rates rise. Most importantly, we have seen good momentum in the housing sector in what seems to be a multi-year uptrend which started a couple of years ago, and the long duration of which I have been highlighting from time to time. Amidst all this global uncertainty and volatility, there has been the stability of the Indian economy driven by a development-oriented government and a prudent central bank.
The Indian economy has exhibited high growth rate, contained inflation. We have an improving current account balance, strong forex reserves. This has enabled the central bank to hit the pause button on interest rates and start supporting job creation. The balance sheets of Indian corporates as well as banks have improved significantly over the last few years and are perhaps in one of their best-ever shapes. While we may not be able to decouple ourselves completely from what is happening in the globe, the overall situation is such that we should not get impacted in any significant manner from global factors. This is seen in the encouraging high-frequency data, including the direct tax collection, GST, PMI, as well as IIP growth numbers. The strong sense of growth in the economy is also translating into optimism on the jobs front.
Let me touch upon a few factors which make me believe that robust job sentiment and wage growth outlook is likely to remain the case for the next several quarters. As per a survey conducted by Aon, a leading HR consultancy firm, India Inc. is likely to deliver salary growth of about 10%. IT hiring at the aggregate level has remained in a positive territory, though of course at a much lower level than in the years right after COVID. This has been supported by the Global Capability Center, GCCs, which have ramped up hiring and are continuing to expand their presence in India. Private CapEx in India has also started looking positive, and with the rollout of the PLI schemes, we have started seeing that manufacturing, which has long been a laggard in the contribution to the Indian economy, is likely to start picking up.
All of the above endorses a very fundamental hypothesis that robust job creation and sustainable wage growth is likely to be the hallmarks of the Indian economy for the next several years. Employees in most sectors remain optimistic on their job prospects, which keeps consumer confidence quite robust. As a consequence of all of the above, we are about to enter a once-in-the-lifetime of this country's transition, where more than 100 million new households will become homeownership capable over the next seven to 10 years. It goes to say that this level of home creation has never been seen in the free world ever. This presents an opportunity of a size which most of us cannot even contemplate at this stage. Our performance over the last two years has to be seen in this context.
It is a long cycle likely to last several years, and as India's largest housing developer with a focus on attracting and retaining the best talent in the industry and developing strong processes, we believe we are best placed to capitalize on this long structural upcycle which we see ahead of us. Over the last two years, after our tepid listing, we saw a good recovery, two capital raises, a primary and a secondary, significant debt repayment, strong cash flow generation, the acceleration of the process of winding down our U.K. exposure, and good momentum and visibility in our progress.
With these achievements behind us and the confidence of a rock-solid balance sheet and a strong, bright future ahead. We are in a position to reward our shareholders with a 1:1 bonus issue indicative of a strong balance sheet, and we are taking the first step on the path to consistent dividend payout reflective of good visibility on cash flows. Starting with INR 2 per share this year, our aim will be to maintain this amount in absolute terms at worst, and over time, we will endeavor to steadily increase the payout as our balance sheet continues to get fortified with strong cash flows. We would like the company to continue to provide consistent growth over the rest of the decade with strong operating cash flow generation, strengthening the balance sheet every passing year and improving return metrics through our proven capital allocation.
We continue to see strong momentum in potential deals available by the way of JDAs or joint development and demand which is strong enough to keep utilizing our own existing land bank as well. There are three areas in particular that I would like you to take note of. Number one, last year, we had operating cash flow of about INR 5,660 crores. After interest and taxes, we had capital available for growth investments as well as for rewarding our capital providers of INR 4,600 crores. Out of that INR 4,600 crores, we utilized INR 2,400 crores towards growth investments and INR 2,200 crores+ towards reducing of debt.
This ability to both invest in growth as well as de-lever at the same time, we believe is unique to Lodha in the Indian real estate space. That is driven by the significant size of our operations as well as our very strong efficiency in converting land to cash through operational excellence. The second factor that I'd like to highlight is the fact that in FY23, our INR 12,000 crore of pre-sales came from 33 contributing projects, which is set to further increase in fiscal 2024. This large number of operating projects means that we are not dependent on any one location or segment for our sales and our growth, which in turn provide granularity and predictability to our business.
The third factor which I'd like to highlight is the strength in our townships business, in which pre-sales rose by about 16% from INR 1,900 crores to just under INR 2,300 crores in fiscal 2023. With significant infrastructure projects which have been long under construction now getting completed in fiscal 2024 and fiscal 2025, we believe that this attractive part of our business with strong underlying cash flows and margins is set for a comprehensive re-rating over the next few years. Adding all of this up, we see clear visibility of 20% growth in pre-sales for fiscal 2024 and a nice path to INR 21,000 crores of pre-sales by fiscal 2026 on the back of significant growth headroom in our core markets of Mumbai and Pune, which will be evidenced through continued business development momentum as well as new launches in these two markets.
In addition, as you are aware, we are in our pilot phase in Bangalore, and we expect to have two launches in the course of fiscal 2024 in Bangalore. While the operating cash flow growth for fiscal 2024 is a tad lower than the pre-sales and collections growth, that is because we also want to build up a strong annuity portfolio in the direction of having sustained cash flow in case of downward cycles. We are working towards net annuity income of INR 500 crores per annum by fiscal 2026 and INR 1,500 crores per annum by the end of the decade through three strategies. Our warehousing and industrial parks platform with Bain and Ivanhoé being number one. Second, our facilities management business serving our large residential base. Third, creation of a selective high-quality commercial asset portfolio. Finally, on the much-maligned four-letter word called debt.
We are now extremely comfortable with the capital structure of the company. We have missed the INR 6,000 crore debt target for fiscal 2023 by INR 1,000 crore, having ended with INR 7,000 crore, but that is on the back of much larger business development, i.e., INR 20,000 crore actual versus INR 15,000 crore of guidance, and the decision not to sell certain high-quality commercial assets, both drivers of future growth and balance sheets, and balance sheet strengthening. In the current year, we not only intend to get our net debt below our stated ceiling, which is 1 times operating cash and 0.5 x equity. In this year and in future years, we intend to continually aim to reduce debt below this ceiling with an endeavor to have the highest quality balance sheet.
The underlying, as an update, on our U.K. business, we repatriated INR 550 crores in the course of the last three quarters, and we intend to expect to repatriate another INR 550 crores in the course of fiscal 2024. With that, the entire repatriation from the U.K. will be complete, and we will divest our equity ownership in the U.K. subsidiaries, in the U.K. companies and will have no longer have any international exposure. As we have stated in the past, Macrotech is solely committed to making all investments in India and growing strongly within this country. As you are aware, on account of the Accounting nuances, the P&L that we report is linked to the occupation certificates received in a given period.
However, we are also, as you are aware, reporting the embedded EBITDA of the sales done in each quarter, and we have also presented the pro forma P&L for this fiscal, which will give you a true picture of the underlying cash flow generation and profitability of our business. As I mentioned earlier, on the back of our strong operational excellence and our very efficient land to cash cycle, our ROEs are now touching 16%+ for fiscal 2023, and we expect to be close to 20% by fiscal 2024. I will leave the details of projects, launches, growth, et cetera, for the Q&A session, but I would like to conclude my part by saying that we are in a strong momentum in residential as well as our annuity businesses. Price growth in the sector is optimal.
We have got a further tailwind with peak of interest rates probably behind us. Costs are under control. Consolidation in the sector continues unabated. Deal flow and opportunities are massive enough for us to be selective. Deal signing and launches will happen with consistency and prudence. In a summation of all of the above, I reiterate that we will have a strong balance sheet, the strongest balance sheet that we've ever had, and consistent growth in sales and cash flows. Given that there have been questions on sales growth on the back of the increase in mortgage rates, of over 200 basis points over the last 12 months, we have our Chief Sales Officer, Prashant Bindal, to give you an update on the current environment as we continue to showcase our management bandwidth.
Of course, our CFO, Sushil Modi, is also available to address any questions on the financials. I now hand over to Prashant for a quick update on sales and then Sushil, and then we will have Q&A after that. Thank you.
Good afternoon. In terms of the overall numbers from the pure sales numbers, we were able to deliver a number of INR 11,500 crore, INR 11,400 crore to be precise. Out of that INR 11,400 crore was purely driven by the fundamentals that we have been working on the ground. The two fundamentals have been what is the number of customers that visit our sites, and what is our conversion ratio. In terms of number of walk-ins, we were able to take the numbers for the first time beyond INR 1 lakh mark. In fact, 115,000 customers visited our site in the year in 33 sites.
The conversion which was almost a 16% increase in the swing over last year, and the conversion improved from 6.8% to 7.5%. 7.5% conversion for the first time we crossed the 7% mark. Eventually, almost 15% increase in walk-ins and 11% increase in the conversion, and the balance increase coming from the price increase that we were able to take. That led us to almost a 34% increase in the overall business. In terms of consistency, for the first time, more than 1,000 channel partners did booking for us, which is a landmark for any real estate company that more than 1,000 channel partners were able to do booking for us.
In terms of the consistency of the business, we had a consistent flow that almost 33% of our business came from the ready-to-move-in business. Almost 32% of the business came from the under-construction business, and 32% of the business coming from the new launches. Extremely consistent business, whether from RTMI, non-RTMI, and under construction and new launches. I think, this gives, you know, 33 projects and the projects and the business coming from ready-to-move-in, under construction and new launches, almost consistent, gives lot of consistency and predictability to the business. In terms of new launches, we had some very good success across the segments.
The biggest success of course was, as you would have read in the luxury segment where in Lodha Malabar, we were able to cross INR 1,000 crore mark and the largest value deal happening in that segment. We also had very good launches in Pune. Pune where Hinjawadi and Kharadi, both the markets, we were able to do business in excess of INR 300 crores. All the launches and in the affordable segment we have had a consistent walk-ins and the business.
As far as the mortgage rate is concerned, yes some change in the business movement has happened that earlier the absolute entry segment of 1 BHK, that has been one segment that there has been an impact of the mortgage rate, but that has been shown by the shift of movements towards the higher segments in case of 2 BHK and 3 BHK. This is the overall idea, and we hope that in the coming years, we hope to have a similar consistency of business improving in terms of walk-ins. When we are looking at almost, we have given a guidance of 20% swing this year. We hope to have another 10%-12% swing in the walk-ins and another 6%-7% swing in the conversion, leading to a 20% growth.
We hope to maintain the same momentum of 30%-35% business in ready-to-move-in, 30% business in under construction and 30% business coming from new launches. This is the basic thing and any questions are most welcome.
Thank you.
This is Sushil Modi. I think you all have heard around the business as a whole, how positively we are moving towards and have moved rather in last two years. The trajectory going forward continues to look even more optimistic vis-à-vis whatever we have seen in last two years. This is what you should be expecting from Lodha moving forward. Why? The question on market rates will always be there in everybody's mind. I know, no point taken. The fact is the reality of life in terms of demand for housing is so robust. You know, some of these perhaps are more, would continue to be on the sidelines.
As far as the, you know, the right brand with the right commitment and the right quality product, you know, when it comes to all of that, I think these things are, you know, does not becomes of any paramount importance. Which is what you heard from Prashant, be it any of the launches that we are doing, more so into in particular micro markets where we were not there, and that is what was the basic hypothesis as part of our business, in terms of growing the growth strategy. That has played out pretty well. You know, just take Eastern suburb where we were completely missing. You know, we have achieved sales of around INR 1,200 crore, which is effectively becomes a 10% of our total sales for the year.
Is Pune, where we our delivery was more to the tune of around INR 250 crore. This year we have achieved INR 1,200 crore there as well. Means, as we continue penetrating with more and more projects, and which is what we call our supermarket strategy to ensure that we bring out product into each and every neighborhood, you know, to cater to the demand sitting there, because we do consider this demand is pretty much non-mobile in to a reasonable extent. Every neighborhood has a particular set of demand which needs to be catered only by bringing in the product there.
Just to add on beyond what Abhishek and Prashant said, you know, in terms of margins, as you would have noticed, our EBITDA margin on the sales that we have achieved, you know, in the current year stood at around 32%. In the next year, as you would have noticed in our presentation for the next year, FY 2024, we have indicated 30%, which is basically just a function of more and more newer projects coming in, wherein the modalities of our raw material acquisition has been under the joint development arrangement route, where typically the margin happens to be a bit lower. Nonetheless, this is our own estimates.
We feel confident to deliver 30% handle of margin on an ongoing basis, even as the JDA proportion in the overall mix continue to increase. The dividend that you all have noticed effectively endorses and suggests the kind of confidence we have in our not only just the top line, but the cash flows, you know, the strength of the cash flow that we continue to see month after month, quarter after quarter. While on the one hand that cash flow enables us to continue reducing our debt, leave aside the threshold that we have set, which is, which in some sense becomes more of a theoretical, you know, threshold or a cap.
We continue to work towards going, you know, and creating far higher cushion vis-à-vis the threshold that we have set. As we see that happening on an ongoing basis, we clearly saw a merit in co-commencing the dividend distribution and which is what you see, this being the first year that we commence this journey. With this, I will, I would like to, you know, perhaps, request you to open the Q&A.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we request you to restrict to one question and one follow-up question per participant. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while we poll for questions. Our first question comes from the line of Murtuza Arsiwalla from Kotak Securities. Please go ahead. Murtuza Arsiwalla, your line is unmuted. You can ask your question.
Sorry. Just wanted to get a sense, you know, you talked about the annuity piece of the stream. Any color, Sushil, that you could give us on what the management business looks like in terms of size and margins and how big this could become?
Murtuza, hi. I presume your question relates to the facilities management business.
Yes, the facilities management.
The facilities management business, as you're aware, we manage for different periods of time, all the developments that we complete. We almost have now 60,000 units, which we have completed and handed over to customers. We are now also starting to see a trend that even when we hand over the management of the buildings to the individual societies, people are coming back and asking us to come back and continue with the management because these are large complex buildings with systems which require particular expertise. More importantly, our expertise in hospitality and the ability to add value beyond just the standard property management are all being valued by consumers.
This business generates a net margin of about 10%. We expect that this business will scale up to net income of about INR 100 crores by fiscal 2026. We believe that along with the digital app that we have just started rolling out, we will scale up to a much larger number by the end of the decade. You know, it could be as large as INR 400 crores-INR 500 crores of net income by the end of the decade.
Thank you. Thank you so much, Abhishek.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Pritesh Sheth from Motilal Oswal. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for the opportunity, and congrats on, you know, FY2023 performance. Firstly, just on, you know, the inquiries and customer visits plus conversions that you highlighted. How has been the trend, you know, on, I mean, throughout the year? I think has Q4 on an average also clocked around 30,000 customer visits and conversions being at around 7.5% or there is, you know, some difference in terms of that quarterly trend as we, you know, moved on to the end of the year?
Thanks, Pritesh. Actually, if you see our business, the hallmark has been the consistency. Across the quarter by quarter, the number of walk-ins and the conversion has been more or less the same. The average for the year is 7.5. The shift could be a 0.1% or a 0.2% here or there, but the consistency in the walk-ins and the revenue has been almost similar across the four quarters. In fact, the surprising was the quarter two piece, because generally the quarter two is the weakest link. But there also the walk-ins and the percentage were almost similar across all the quarters. Not much any differentiator and even across categories. Whether it was affordable or premium, the consistency was there almost all across.
Sure. Sure. That's, that's helpful. Secondly on, you know, on the digital infra business, I think apart from, you know, the signing of the platform this year, we haven't seen much traction. Is it like building up for a very strong year this year or, you know, if you can highlight something on digital infra where we are?
Pritesh, hi. I'll just add a little bit more color to in terms of numbers to what Prashant just answered in terms of walk-ins. Our approximate walk-ins for Q3 were 27,000, and for Q4 it was 31,000. As you'd see, while it is broadly consistent from quarter to quarter, there was a modest tick-up in the number of walk-ins in Q4. That's the data set. In terms of your questions on digital infrastructure, as you know, this is a platform which has been put together in the middle of last year, around it started operating from the middle of the last fiscal 2023, which along with Bain Capital and Ivanhoé Cambridge.
We expect a significant ramp-up in terms of the two projects which the platform already has, which is a 110 acre parcel in Palava as well as a in-city warehousing site in Kurla. The platform is also now as the team has built up, we have the new CEO of the business, Mr. D.S. Rawat , who used to be CEO of Indus Towers for a long period of time. With all of those things coming in, we expect the business to grow with a higher level in the current fiscal.
Overall, it's a business which has an investment period of three and a half to four years, and then we expect it to be a mature business within six years from the start, i.e., from June 2022 to June 2028 is the overall period that we're looking at making these investments and scaling up the business sufficiently enough for it to be at a point where it can go to a REIT or a similar kind of an exit.
Sure. My question was, apart from, you know, the platform, you know, where are we at the sales for, you know, the large land parcels that we have on that digital infra itself, right? I think that velocity in FY2022 was, you know, much better. We have seen good chunk of deals. This year it was kind of muted apart from the platform that we had. Any comments on that?
Yeah. I mean, I think, the, land monetization piece that you're referring to, and sorry.
Sure.
understand your question with clarity earlier. The land monetization piece that you're referring to is something which happens for different kinds of activities from time to time. We've, of course, given the details in the quarterly presentation. We expect to see the same level of monetization of about INR 500 crore per annum coming from the land side in the current fiscal too.
Sure. Sure. Got it. That's it from my side for now. I have a couple of more questions. I'll join back. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one. Our next question comes from the line of Sameer Baisiwala from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hi, good afternoon, everyone, and thanks for taking me in. Thanks for a very detailed presentation. My question is regarding the cash flows for fiscal 2024. If you can just highlight what would be the construction spend and what would be the money that you need to spend for new project acquisition?
Hi, Sameer. We are contemplating our construction expenditure to be in the order of around INR 4,500 odd crores for FY 2024. From a growth CapEx standpoint, the numbers would be somewhere around, you know, in totality, both the new projects as well as some of the projects that we have already signed up but will be coming in the current year, all combined, potentially INR 2,500 crores round about.
Okay, great. If I then connect this with the OCF guidance of INR 60 billion for next year, that should leave at least INR 2,500 crore for your net debt reduction. Is that math correct? That actually takes you much below your, you know, the ceiling targets that you have given.
Sameer, your math is definitely in the right direction. Yes, that is our endeavor, is to consistently reduce debt well below the ceiling. Which is the reason why we are using that term of ceiling for the debt of 0.5x of equity and 1x of operating cash flow. We hope that we will be able to continuously go below that ceiling. As we saw last year, the growth opportunities are exciting, and yet we were able to reduce debt significantly and we will continue to walk down the same trajectory.
Okay, great. One final from my side, and that is, what's the pricing outlook for fiscal 2024? I think, Prashant, what you mentioned, the footfall and the conversion imply that your total 20% growth is going to come from there and almost no price increase. If you can just clarify on that.
No, no. Actually, if I, as I said that if we are looking at about 50% increase in the value terms, we expect 5%-6% increase coming from the price and, the balance 14%-15% coming from the value from the footfalls as well as the conversion.
Okay. My bad. Yeah. Okay. Thank you so much. Yes.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Parvez Qazi from Nuvama Group. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good afternoon, and thanks for taking my question. My question is on the township business piece. We have seen a nice jump that year. Some part of it obviously has come from the improvement in launches. Apart from that, what are the some of the steps that you would have taken, which would have resulted in this kind of growth? What is your outlook on this segment going ahead? Thank you.
Hi, Parvez Qazi. The township business is a core, I would say, strength of our larger business. This caters largely to the mid-income segment. We have over the last 10 years built a huge moat around this business in because of the large investments made, the quality of the infrastructure created, as well as the hard and soft factors which compel people to see this as by far the best location to live in when they're looking at mid-income housing in the MMR. In terms of the drivers of the move up in this last year, I would say that it was driven by the launches as well as by the fact that there is a good sense of demand in the mid-income segment.
We also brought in some new categories, for example, for sale offices as well as for sale retail. We also started plotted development in a part of our townships business, and all of this helped contribute to the sales. Going forward for fiscal 2024, and I would even, you know, go on a limb to say fiscal 2025 and 2026, we see that this segment should outperform. Our townships business should outperform on the back of some very important infrastructure projects which are now getting completed. Actually, this morning itself, I was at Upper Thane and saw the bridge which is connecting now Upper Thane to the Dombivli railway station, which makes Upper Thane just 10 minutes away from Dombivli railway station.
I saw the massive works which are progressing on the Mumbai-Nashik highway, which will connect to the Nagpur super highway, which in turn will make Upper Thane very much the entry point into Mumbai for everybody who's using the Nagpur expressway. Similarly, I understand that the tunnel from Airoli to Palava is now almost ready and should be opening sometime in the second half of this year. There are the metro, the tender for the metro works, which will have multiple stations in and around Palava for Metro Line 12 has also been released by the government authorities.
There is a very significant amount of infrastructure uplift now and in the coming years, which is we are going to see, and we expect to see about a 20% year-on-year growth in our township business for the foreseeable future.
Thank you, sir. That's it from my side. Over.
Just to add, you know, in terms of the parameters in township, you know, we had 45,000 walk-ins happening in the township business, which was almost a 13% swing in the number of walk-ins. For the first time, we touched 10% conversion in the township, which is very significant. I think these two, and we had a 5%, 5.7% price increase leading to the overall business. I think the overall fundamentals of the township business look very significant. Yeah, we look forward to... A 10% conversion was a very significant change because we were trying for many years, and we finally touched it this year.
Thank you, sir.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Abhinav Sinha from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for taking my question. Firstly, on pricing bit again. We saw a slightly higher 8% increase this year as compared to, you know, 5%-6% which was, which you were posting last quarter. Is there a delta among the various geographies, and what has driven this increase?
The price growth that we saw for the full year at about 8% was higher than our expectation and guidance for around 6%. We do feel that it is a healthy price growth because it is still below wage growth. At the same time, our target price growth for the coming year, as Prashant mentioned, will be in that 5%-7% range so that affordability keeps getting better. In terms of FY2023, where the price growth was strongest, we saw good price growth in the ready segments, in the ready-to-move-in inventory. We also saw good price growth in select projects which are in Pune as well as in the eastern suburbs.
Overall, you know, it's not a particular segment, it's not a particular project driving that price growth. It's broad-based. Yes, you would have a range. Some cases will be like around 5%-6%, some cases would be 9%-10%, and the overall blending at about 8%. There's not a wide divergence that we are seeing.
Okay. Secondly, on the sales guidance front, last year you had given us some granularity on the various micro markets and geographies. Can you help us a bit, you know, among how much can we see from the suburbs and South Central? I also see Bangalore projects in pipeline this time, when are we expecting that to be launched?
Hi. We would prefer to give our guidance at the aggregate level, and that's what we had kept last year, too. We are working towards two launches in Bangalore. One should happen in the next three odd months, and the second in the second half of the year. Bangalore will contribute a modest amount to growth this year, probably in the range of INR 700 crore-INR 1,000 crore of sales from Bangalore. The rest of the growth is expected, of course, to come from Mumbai and Pune. In terms of Pune market, you can definitely expect to cross INR 2,000 crore of sales.
Out of our 14.5 , if you wanted to break it down at a city level, you would see INR 2,000 crores+ from Pune, about INR 700 crores-INR 1,000 crores from Bangalore, and the rest of it, which is over INR 11,500 crores coming from Mumbai. I would like to point out that compared to fiscal 2023, Mumbai was already, you know, quite strong, running at about INR 10,500 crores+ of sales. If you look at each of the three buckets, the kind of sales growth that we are projecting and are guiding to is quite prudent and comes off, you know, a solid base of fiscal 2023.
That's helpful. If I may ask a question to Prashant, sir, also, since you have him on the call.
Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. Throughout last year, particularly even later in the year, there was higher pricing as well as impact of higher mortgage rates. Did you see any impact in the product which is being demanded now by the customers?
You see, what, the impact that happened was that in the affordable segment, the shift was anyway moving from 1 BHK to 2 BHK, and in the aspirational segment from 2 BHK to 3 BHKs. That shift was very clearly evident because this shift was either because of the consumer behavior shift or because of the mortgage raised rates. You know, the number of walk-ins specifically for 1 BHKs in the affordable segment, that plumbed. That came down to some extent. We believe that with the mortgage rates actually stabilizing in this year, the tailwind, headwinds behind us, this is one segment which we expect to grow this year.
Very, very helpful, sir. Thanks a lot.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Mohit Agrawal from IIFL. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thanks for the opportunity. My question is on completions. In fiscal 2023, you had 9.5 million sq ft of completions. As per presentation, next two years, it's about 6 million-7.5 million sq ft per annum. How should we look at this, you know, and how should we look at the revenue recognition in the P&L? Could you guide a little bit on that?
Hi, Mohit. Now, from a completions standpoint, yes, the data that you see is basically of the project that is going to get completed. On the same seat, if you see our revenue recognition, even under the current accounting mechanism, which is, you know, on completion method, comes out of few sources. One from completions as is, but equally is we already have the ready inventory in-incrementally, right?
Then as we keep adding any new assets or the annuity assets that we have, if anything, on that side, the sales that takes place, be it equally, coming from land, as you know. All of those gets added to this revenue, number that we recognize. It's not just a number, fully baked in basis, only the completion. It is a culmination of few variables all taken together that comes in. More importantly, perhaps if I may add, we are equally, kind of, you know, visiting our accounting mechanics and trying figuring out is this the right, and the sole method of, doing the accounting.
We are in discussion with our auditors too, whether there is any other way to reflect the true fundamental of the business and whether the completion method alone is the right method or can there be a possibilities of doing accounting basis more as a percentage of completion method which used to happen in the past. Yes, but we don't have any conclusion as yet. We are discussing figuring out. Nonetheless, as I said, revenue number basis, the completion method will be a culmination of few variables and a few pillars.
Okay, understood. By when we should have clarity around whether you could be shifting to a percentage completion or not?
Nothing at this point. I just said that this is something that we are grappling with, and thereby we did not have a chance as yet to discuss in detail. That is something that we would be perhaps commencing to understand. you know, this is basically I'm saying so because this completion method do create, you know, confusions and which is where the question like what you just mentioned arise on a at any given point of time.
Sure. Understood. My second question on data points, on the land monetization piece in Palava and the digital infra segment, what is the per acre pricing that you're seeing? Has there been a pickup, like we've seen a pickup in the pricing of projects? Has there been a pickup in the pricing in the last one year?
In fact, obviously, yes. Price is kind of showing an increasing trend on a quarter-on-quarter basis. We in this quarter, though the quantum was not big, but the transaction that took place has kind of reached to around INR 6 crore per acre+ , though the volume was less. Yeah, you are right. It's pretty obvious, right? Because as the more and more mass is getting created, now this year we will see lot many things commencing operation, you know, there. One of the land that we had sold to Flyjac Logistics, they are in the advanced stage of completion of their park and thereby, their tenants will move in.
On our park, the Skechers, as you recall, has come in there, and that is going to become operational in this financial year. Thereby, numerous activities that are now going to get commenced and start are going to obviously keep boosting these price points. Price points for us not only on this side, but equally the demand and the price point for our residential business.
Sure. That's all from my side. Thanks a lot.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Prem Khurana from Anand Rathi Shares and Stock Brokers. Please go ahead.
Thank you for taking my question. I have two questions. One was, essentially when I look at our KPIs and the guidance that we've given for next year, we see good growth in terms of pre-sales and I think even in terms of construction spend, the number that you gave us over the course of the call seemed to be pretty encouraging. For some reason, our OCF, I mean, is at around what we are guiding for next year is around INR 6,000 versus INR 5,600. I mean, when I look at collections, obviously it's gonna be a function of two things. One, what you sell during the year, and then you'll also be able to have milestone receipts from what you sold early, in the earlier years, right? You've been growing.
Ideally, I mean, even our milestone payment should be higher. Why is this disconnect between the kind of growth that we're seeing in sales and ideally which should translate into similar sort of growth in collections and then construction? Why this insignificant growth in OCF? Are we missing something there?
The question of the OCF growth being a lower percentage compared to the growth in pre-sales or even in terms of overall cash flows is called out on slide 25 of our presentation. You can perhaps also take a look at that later. To summarize what we've stated over there, that's driven by two factors. One is our strategic decision to own and not sell certain high quality annuity assets, which tend to release significant amount of free cash flow because they're fully ready and 100%, therefore generating cash flow and operating cash flow.
The second part is that as we go forward, while the quantum of our ready to move-in sales, will approximately remain the same or slightly go up in percentage terms, the quantum of ready to move in, ready product sales will go down because a lot more, sales are coming from new launches and under construction. Therefore, as a percentage, the ready to move in units tend to release a much higher OCF. Combination of those two factors is leading to this one-time, I would say, readjustment, of the OCF as a proportion of pre-sales. I think we should be back to a more, linear, equation, for in subsequent years.
Sure. Second question was on the project addition that was done during the almost around INR 20,000 odd crore rupees. We seem to have spent almost around INR 1,700 odd crore rupees for these new additions. Assuming there are some more things which are yet to go, but if I consider 1,700, it works out to be almost around 8.5% of what we've been able to add in terms of GDV. Is it a number that you were working with or it is lower than our expectation or higher than our expectation? What ideally this number should be, and given the fact that you're focusing more on JDA arrangement where the capital intensity ideally should be on a lower side.
The way we think about business development and business development guidance is to add sufficient land in your N-1 , which is equal to the sales that we are targeting for year N. By looking at our business development guidance for any year, you can actually extrapolate the sales guidance that we are likely to have in the subsequent year. As you may have noted last year, we gave business development guidance for about INR 15,000 crores and we are now, as you see, our sales guidance for fiscal 2024 is at about INR 14,500 crores.
Logically, the reason for choosing or targeting at least INR 17,500 crore of business development in fiscal 2024, we might do higher than that, but at least INR 17,500 crore of business development in fiscal 2024, is that we are likely to have sales guidance for fiscal 2025, which is, you know, compounding at 20% from what we achieve in fiscal 2024. That will be in that range of that INR 17,000 crore-INR 17,500 crore neighborhood. That's the way in which we think about business development, is to add sufficient land in a given year, which is equal to the likely sales in the subsequent year.
Sure. On the cost side, I mean, the number would remain somewhat similar. I mean, 8%-10% of the GDV that you add or.
Yeah. Typically our JDA projects tend to have investments which is between 5%-10% of the GDV, and the outright lands tend to have investment which is closer to 20% of the GDV. As Sushil mentioned, the total investment that we envisaged this year into land is about INR 2,500 crores, which includes all the new land plus any partner share for whatever land we've taken on JDA in the past years. We do expect that the ratios for JDAs will remain in that 5%-10% range, and the ratio for outright will remain in that close to 20% range.
Sure. Thank you. I have a few more. I'll come back to you. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Kunal Lakhan from CLSA. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, good afternoon. Abhishek, in your comments you mentioned that the guidance for EBITDA margin or outlook on EBITDA margin, where EBITDA margin would be about 30%, and this will be despite, you know, the new projects contributing. I just want to understand because we have been saying that the new projects usually have 18% as PBT margin, right? You know, just trying to reconcile that with, say, you know, the declining interest costs, the PBT margin should could be closer to the EBITDA margin. As and when the contribution from JDA projects increase, you know, what will drive this 30% EBITDA margin?
Hi Kunal. The question is an important one. I think a few things are at play over here. We of course underwrite our JDAs at between 18%-20% PBT margin. In terms of the transition from EBITDA, from PBT to EBITDA, at the current levels of debt, or at least what we were underwriting when we took the projects, that's an addition of between 7%-10%. So typically the equivalent EBITDA margin will be in the, you know, high twenties, for a JDA project, and it'll be in the sort of high thirties for an outright project.
If you even were to take, say, 25%-26% for JDAs and 33%-35% for outright, you will see that with our target mix of 60% from outright lands and 40% from JDAs, we feel pretty comfortable of blending it at 30% or thereabout. Actually, our margins for last fiscal are at 32%, and the reason for our muted guidance on underlying EBITDA margin to 30% is exactly on account of the fact that the contribution from JDA projects is likely to be higher this year in fiscal 2024 than it was in fiscal 2023, and therefore, that downward adjustment of approximately 200 basis points on embedded EBITDA margin side.
Sure. That's, that's helpful. Just to follow up on that, if you can share what is the contribution of JDA projects in fiscal, in FY 2023 and what are you building that in FY 2024?
FY2023, the contribution from JDAs as a percentage of sales was in the, was about 26, 27%. We expect that number to move up to about, around 40% for, or thereabout for fiscal 2024.
Sure. That's very helpful. Thanks a lot, and all the best. Awesome.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Sameer Baisiwala from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hi, thanks for the follow-up. quick question on One Lodha Place. How's the leasing momentum over there?
Hi, Sameer. Except for the fact that you all chose to go somewhere else, the momentum is generally good. You know, we have been seeing some very high quality businesses operate from there. We have Condé Nast operating from there. We have Gucci, which is starting operations soon. We have Saint Laurent, which is operating soon. We have a few law firms as well as financial services firm, operating from there. Generally, that building is seen as amongst the best, if not the very best office building, in the city, and we are getting a high quality of tenants.
I think, in Q4, the leasing was 0.1 million square feet, if that's right, out of 0.75 million. Roughly about 12%-13%. How much time do you think this will take to get fully leased up?
We expect to be, I would say, at high, very high levels of lease out by the end of the current fiscal. You know, whether that'll be at 85% or 90% or 95%, that time will tell. We'll be at fairly close to our steady state number by the end of this fiscal.
Okay. Okay. Second question is on South Central Mumbai. Just, what's the outlook over here? Do you think it's a little oversupplied based on all the announced projects, et cetera, or do you think there's enough and more demand there? Second is how is your Mahalaxmi launch doing, the Solitaire project?
Sameer, I think, you know, while all of us or a lot of people on this call, you know, because we either live in or have offices in South Central Mumbai, we do sort of sit and to believe or see significant supply when the announcements are made. The reality is that in South Mumbai, which is sort of the area south of Haji Ali, actually it's very, very undersupplied or supply starved, especially of good quality development. South Mumbai truly has little limited, very little supply. Anecdote, you know, some stuff comes up from time to time, but it's not huge. Central Mumbai, you know, there is again a few announcements. There are some office announcements, a couple of residential announcements.
We do still like the fact that our project locations as well as our product quality tends to have a very strong followership in this market. The Solitaire launch has started off well, and we continue to believe that we as the market leaders in Central, South and Central Mumbai will continue to have I would say good demand for our product.
Okay. I guess Abhishek was referring to Haji Ali to Siddhivinayak, if that's the right way to demarcate it. I mean, is this area, you think still has enough and more demand? If you see south of Haji Ali, do you think you have enough BD opportunities over there?
South of Haji Ali, yes, you know, BD opportunities are continuing because it's very clear, right? When the brand is as strong as ours is in this area, both whoever land, society, whatever redevelopment they would like to partner with the best. I think we do have decent opportunity to continue to serve that market. I think in terms of your question of between Haji Ali to Siddhivinayak, I haven't. You know, we've seen a couple from one of the other listed peers, but other than that, it's not there isn't anything significant. I think you know, these projects between acquisition to start, especially if they involve redevelopment or do take some time. We feel we continue to remain constructive on this segment.
No, no current concerns in terms of oversupply.
Okay, great. Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Pritesh Sheth from Motilal Oswal. Please go ahead.
Thanks for the follow-up opportunity. Just a couple of points. In terms of, you know, business development or project acquisition since last two years, I think Eastern Suburbs, Pune, and probably South Central Mumbai as well, you have done well. In Western Suburbs, you know, there were I think two, three project additions. How do you see the traction there? I mean, considering that market is largely a redevelopment market, you know, how is the opportunity there beyond redevelopment that you see? Should we expect some good additions, you know, this year in this market as well?
Yes. Pritesh, the Western Suburbs is a market where we see room to penetrate further and deeper. You can expect some positive movement to new business development in the Western Suburbs in the course of this year.
Will we ever be keen to do some society redevelopment in this market to, you know, capture the market share, or we don't have to necessarily get into society redevelopment, you know, to gain market share in that?
We are agnostic when it comes to the form of how the land is, as long as we have vacant land and clear title. Quite frankly, you know, whether society redevelopment with someone has already brought to a particular point of maturity, we're okay with that. If there is a vacant land, that's fine. If someone has a slum project which they've cleaned up and there is the free sale portion is free, that's also fine with us. You know, our focus is on, as I'd mentioned earlier in a different context, is on a shortest possible land to cash cycle. For that, the right raw material, i.e. land which is clean and buildable in a reasonably quick timeframe is very important for us.
Sure. Sure. That's very helpful. Just last clarification. On Bangalore, the two launches that you're pointing out is two phases of same project, right? Are we also in sight to acquire another project in Bangalore?
No. We're guiding to two launches at two different locations. One launch will be of course at the land which we've already done a joint development for. We expect in the course of this year that we will at least do one more project. That are the two launches that we are guiding for.
Sure. That's helpful. Thank you. That's it from my side, and all the best.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached the end of the question and answer session. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Anand Kumar, Head of Investor Relations for closing comments.
Thank you, everyone, for joining the call. We remain quite positive on the industry. With the strong growth drivers present in the industry, we remain confident of achieving our medium-term guidance of 20% CAGR in sales as well as 20% ROE. Feel free to reach out to me or Sushil or the IR team for any further questions. Thank you.
Thank you. On behalf of Antique Stock Broking, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines.