Peninsula Land

It gives me great pleasure to present the Companys 136th Annual Report
 and share my thoughts on last years performance as well as the future
 plans of the Company.
 
 For Peninsula Land, the last year was a difficult one as work on all
 our mill land projects in Mumbai was affected for more than six months
 due to stop work notices received from the Municipal Authorities. As a
 Company, we have always complied with rules and regulations in force
 and hence the notices were, in my view, unjust. However, to minimise
 the impact on the Companys profitability on account of stoppage of
 work, we had taken up the matter with the Government Authorities for
 amicable settlement and the stop work notices were withdrawn w.e.f. 2nd
 April, 2008. Since then, work on all projects has commenced in full
 swing.
 
 We have substantially sold most of our Mumbai projects, thereby
 de-risking ourselves from the threat of any downward price correction
 and also at the same time ensuring certainty of cash inflows. We now
 have land in the cities of Pune, Goa, Nashik, Nagpur and Hyderabad
 wherein development work is expected to commence shortly and the
 projects will be completed over a span of 3 to 5 years.
 
 Inspite of the issues faced by the Company, as enumerated above, we
 still posted a profit after tax of Rs. 129.79 crores compared to Rs.
 132.04 crores for the nine months ended 31st March, 2007. In addition
 to this we were successful in raising Rs.525 crores by issue of shares
 through the Qualified Institutional Placement (QIP) route. Your Company
 was also successful in obtaining PR 1 and CARE A- ratings by the Credit
 Rating Institution - CARE, for the Companys short term and long term
 borrowings.
 
 Though the last year started on a promising note, towards the last
 quarter, the global economy has been adversely impacted by the turmoil
 in financial markets in the United States on account of the subprime
 crisis. This has been further aggravated by the unprecedented increase
 in the price of crude oil. The aftershocks of the crisis in global
 financial markets had its impact on the Indian economy which had a
 dream run for the last several years and is now, feeling the heat in
 the form of high inflation, which is threatening to slow down the
 growth. However, the silver lining is that experts still regard India
 as a long term success story and hope that the Government and industry
 will put their act together to come out of this unscathed.
 
 Turning to real estate, which again witnessed unprecedented increase in
 prices, the sector is now showing signs of correction. However, I feel
 these are short term blips and real estate as a sector will continue to
 be a major contributor to the Indian economy. I say this because the
 growth drivers in case of each asset class of real estate continue to
 remain robust.
 
 Residential - driven by a growing middle class population with high
 disposable incomes and increasing urbanisation.
 
 Commercial - driven by a sustained demand from IT / ITeS sector as well
 as entry / expansion of MNCs in India.
 
 Retail - largely driven by growth of organised retail, whose presence
 today is minuscule compared to our Asian peers.
 
 Integrated Township - driven by the demand for quality lifestyle,
 walk-to work concept and the development of commercial, retail,
 residential, and leisure facilities within a given area.
 
 SEZs, which would be the next growth driver for the manufacturing and
 infrastructure sectors.
 
 At Peninsula Land, our efforts will continue to leverage our brand
 equity and project management skills across the spectrum of the real
 estate arena.
 
 Finally, I thank you for the continuous support given to us and the
 trust reposed in us. I am confident that with the unstinted efforts put
 in by our dedicated team of employees, Peninsula Land will continue to
 scale greater heights in the years to come.
 
 Yours sincerely,
 
                                                           URVI PIRAMAL
                                                            Chairperson