DLF may close Aman deal within weeks

Wind energy biz also on the block, firm says will cut debt to Rs 18,500 cr by fiscal end, from Rs 21,220 cr currently

India’s largest realty player DLF plans to offload Aman Hotel, identified as among the group’s non-core assets apart from the Delhi property, in the next few weeks. Ashok Tyagi, CFO, DLF, said in an analyst call today, “we are closing the deal in the next few weeks and hope we would be able to announce it in the current quarter itself”. The deal is expected to conclude by January 2013." 

On the wind energy business, the company said it had all the approvals in place and the deal was another 2-3 months away. “We have all regulatory approvals in place required to sell our wind assets, which should take another 2-3 months”, said Tyagi.

The company had taken investors’ nod in July this year to sell its wind energy business.  DLF’s net debt rose by Rs 540 crore to touch Rs 23,220 crore as of September 30. But, after the Mumbai NTC mill land deal with the Lodha group, the company’s said its debt was down to Rs 21,220 crore.

Tyagi said DLF was confident of reducing the debt to Rs 18,500 crore by end of this fiscal and Rs 15,000 crore by 2014-15. “We have maintained earlier that Rs 13,000-14,000 crore is a comfortable level of debt for us. We will do disinvestment worth Rs 5,000 crore this fiscal”, he said. The company sold NTC Mill land to Lodha Developers in July for Rs 2,727 crore including Rs 500 crore advance. It received the balance amount sometimes a few weeks ago.

DLF had offloaded its entire stake in Adone Hotels and Hospitality Limited for Rs 567 crore to Kolkata-based Avani Projects and Square Four Housing & Infrastructure, in the first quarter of the financial year. “We have already done divestment of about Rs 3000 crore this fiscal and our targetfor the fiscal is Rs 5,000 crore,” said Tyagi.

The company said that it would announce the next round of its non-core sale strategy next financial year.  The company added that other miscellaneous transactions worth Rs 500 crore are  underway with expected closure within FY13.

Company’s saw a 62.8 per cent drop in its net profit for the quarter ended September 2012 to Rs 138.5 crore to Rs 372.4 crore.

The company did not launch any big ticket project this fiscal so far, impacting its cash flows, but said that at least two high impact launches are coming up this quarter and early next quarter. “We will be launching at least 8.5 million sq ft between now and March in Gurgaon”, the company CFO said. Across the country, it would launch 9 to 10 million sq ft, of which 8.5 million sq ft will be in Gurgaon, according to Tyagi.   

In order to comply with the Securities & Exchange Board of India (Sebi) norms, DLF will offload promoters’ stake in the first or the second quarter of next year to 75 per cent from 78.58 per cent now.