DLF's sales booking to cross Rs 3,000 crore this fiscal

NEW DELHI: Realty major DLF's sales bookings will cross Rs 3,000 crore this fiscal helped by better sales during this quarter in its two housing projects at Gurgaon, a senior company official said.

India's largest realty firm had earlier given the guidance that sales bookings would be in the range of Rs 3,000-3,500 crore in the current 2014-15 financial year as against Rs 4,070 crore achieved during last fiscal.

"We have done a sales bookings of about Rs 1,900 crore in the first nine months of this fiscal. In the first six weeks of this quarter, we have already sold properties worth Rs 800 crore primarily in Crest and Camellias at Gurgaon. So, we should cross Rs 3,000 crore comfortably by March end," DLF chief financial officer (CFO) Ashok Tyagi told PTI.

He said the sales booking would be on the lower end of the guidance but the figures could be higher if the company decides to launch a new project at Gurgaon DLF Privana, where it would be developing about 500 premium independent floors with a saleable area of one million sqft.

"We launch projects when the market conditions are right and not to improve the quarterly sales booking numbers," Tyagi observed.

The DLF CFO noted that sales have been "slow" during this fiscal and therefore, the company is looking for private equity funding at project level to boost cash-flow.

The company plans to divest around 50 per cent stake each in four new housing projects to private equity firms for over Rs 3,000 crore.

On the sales outlook, he said the sales volume in most geographies should continue at a moderate pace.

Tyagi said the company's expenditure on construction of projects is likely to be about Rs 2,700 crore this fiscal.

Asked about the timeline for launch of Noida mall, he said the mall should be operational during the first quarter of next fiscal.

"We are expecting an annual rental income of over Rs 200 crore from the Noida mall," he added.

'DLF Mall of India' with 2 million sq ft of leasable area is being developed in Noida in the National Capital Region at an investment of Rs 1,100 crore and touted as one of the biggest in the country.

Earlier this month, DLF had reported 9 per cent decline in consolidated net profit at Rs 131.79 crore for the quarter ended December against Rs 145.29 crore in the year-ago period.

Income from operations fell 5 per cent to Rs 1,956.72 crore for the third quarter of this fiscal from Rs 2,058.42 crore in the corresponding period of the previous year.

DLF has a land bank of about 295 million square feet, of which 50 million square feet is under development.