DLF sells Saket shopping mall to its own arm

India’s largest realty firm, DLF, on Thursday sold its shopping mall at Saket in New Delhi to its wholly-owned subsidiary for Rs 904.5 crore, as part of a strategy to consolidate and monetise rental assets.

DLF said the board of directors had “approved sale of ‘DLF Place Saket’, a shopping mall, having a built-up area of 5,16,000 sq ft along with land parcel... to Nambi Buildwell Pvt Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the company on an arm’s length basis”.

This is in line with the strategy to structure ownership of existing assets to facilitate potential monetisation, either through Real Estate Investment Trusts or otherwise in future, subject to necessary regulatory and statutory approvals, the company said in a filing to the BSE.

In October last year, DLF had announced its promoters would sell their 40 per cent stake in the company’s rental arm, DLF Cyber

City Developers, for an estimated Rs 12,000 crore to institutional investors for monetising commercial assets and remove conflicts of interest.

DLF owns remaining 60 per cent stake in DCCDL, which holds the bulk of its office and retail complexes. The company has rental assets of about 30 million sq ft with an annual rental income of about Rs 2,700 crore.

The promoters will re-invest a significant part of the amount realised from the sale in DLF Ltd.

DLF is expecting the deal to be completed by July this year as more than 25 institutional investors have shown interest to take part in bidding process.

Meanwhile, DLF informed that the board has declared an interim dividend of Rs 2 per fully paid equity shares of Rs 2 each of the company for the FY 2016.

DLF has a land bank of 281 million sq ft, of which 37 million sq ft is under construction.

DLF Ltd