Godrej Properties' sales bookings jump over 3-fold; debt dips

Realty firm Godrej Properties' sales bookings jumped more than three-fold to Rs 1,474 crore while net debt reduced by Rs 400 crore in the first quarter of this fiscal.
Mumbai-based Godrej Properties Ltd (GPL), the realty arm of the Godrej Group, achieved its best ever quarterly sales in housing segment at Rs 1,472 crore in the quarter ended June. The commercial segment contributed only Rs 2 crore to overall sales bookings, according to its investor presentation.
In terms of area, the company's sales booking jumped over three-times to nearly 1.8 million sq ft during the June quarter.
"GPL's best ever quarter for residential sales with a booking value of Rs 1,472 crore," the presentation said.

Housing projects in Mumbai, Pune and Greater Noida contributed maximum to sales bookings.
During the June quarter, GPL added four new projects to its portfolio with nearly 5 million sq ft of saleable area. This included an acquisition of about 15 acre land in Gurgaon for developing a high-end residential project with saleable area of about 1.5 million sq ft.

On projects execution, GPL said that it delivered 1,101 apartments measuring 2 million sq ft in Gurgaon and Vikhroli.
"Delivered 998 apartments measuring 1.86 million sq ft at Godrej Summit, Gurgaon. Delivered 103 apartments measuring 0.15 million sq ft at Godrej Platinum, Vikhroli," it said.

GPL said its net debt reduced to Rs 3,091 crore as on June 30, 2017 from Rs 3,499 crore at the end of the last fiscal. The average borrowing cost also fell to 8.45 per cent from 8.8 per cent during this period.
Last week, the company reported a 46 per cent decline in net profit to Rs 23.37 crore for the quarter ended June as against Rs 43.47 crore in the year-ago period.
This was mainly due to higher tax outgo that surged to Rs 19.48 crore from Rs 10.65 crore during the period under review.
Total income, however, rose 3 per cent to Rs 345 crore in the first quarter of this fiscal from Rs 333 crore in the corresponding period of the previous year.

GPL is currently developing residential, commercial and township projects across about 138 million sq ft in 12 cities.