Finance cost pulls down Unitech net

Its consolidated income for the quarter grew by 13.5% and stood at Rs 732 cr as compared to Rs 645 cr in FY13

Real estate developer Unitech has posted a 61 per cent decline in its net profit to Rs 32.8 crore for the the quarter ended December 31 because of higher expenses and finance costs.

It had posted a net profit of Rs 84 crore in the same quarter a year ago.

Its consolidated income for the quarter grew by 13.5 per cent and stood at Rs 732 crore as compared to Rs 645 crore in FY13.

The company’s expenses grew 31.6 per cent at Rs 716 crore, while finance costs went up 234 per cent at Rs 28 crore for the October-December quarter.

Unitech stated it had a healthy balance sheet with a net debt to equity ratio of 0.5. The net debt as of December 31, 2013, stood at Rs 6,299 crore.

Sanjay Chandra, managing director, said, “We resumed the launch of new projects in the quarter with four million sq ft of new projects. These helped the company achieve a sequential growth of 33 per cent in sales bookings in a sluggish market.”

Unitech delivered 0.76 million sqft in third quarter against 0.56 million sqft in second quarter 2013-14. It achieved sales bookings of 1.74 million sqft at an average realization of Rs 6147 per sqft.

Residential sales bookings of 1.26 million sq ft for about Rs 695 crore and non-residential sales bookings of 0.48 million sq ft for about Rs 376 crore, the statement added.