Denying reports of delay in approval for key premium projects, Amit Sarin, chief executive officer, Anant Raj Industries told CNBC-TV18 that the company is fully on track.

Sarin said, "We zeroed in on five projects out of which three have been successfully launched. One out of three has been fully sold, the other two are getting very good response and are also fully on track,"

The current debt in the books of company stands at Rs 1,100 crore. It aims to cut it down to about 50% by end of 2012.

Below is the edited transcript of Sarin's interview with CNBC-TV18. Also watch the accompanying video.

Q: There are some reports which suggest that the company is facing some sort of delays in approvals of key premium projects. Is there any truth to these kind of reports?

A: Not at all. We are fully on track. Last year, Anant Raj came back into residential in a big way. We zeroed in on five projects out of which three have been successfully launched. One out of three has been fully sold, the other two are getting very good response and are also fully on track. 

Q: We have spoken to you multiple times and you have reiterated quite adamantly that everything is strong on the fundamentals of the business and everything is on track etc. But if we look into your stock price it's down 64% this year itself, it is down 35% in the past three months. Any sort of concerns which you have spoken about with investors or anything you brought up in terms of why the sudden fall and this rapid decimation in the stock?

A: We can clarify about what all the company is doing. Stock performance is something which depends on the market and the overall scenario. But if you look at the company, in April 2010 Anant Raj was a zero debt company, with a net asset value of about Rs 3,200 crore in the balance sheet. From there we took on some debt and we came back into land buying in a big way.

We spent almost Rs 900 crore in the past one year in buying land. All the projects are fully on track, the company is fully funded. The peak debt on the company at one time was about Rs 1,400 crore. We have now got it down to about Rs 1,100 crore. So we are fully comfortable and this Rs 1,100 crore is against net asset value for about Rs 3,800 crore. So, the ratios are all in place, we are pretty comfortable.

Q: Coming to the entire cash flow situation for real estate, how has been the leasing activity in any of your IT parks?

A: Leasing is slow. Today, we have about 5 million sq ft which is absolutely ready for occupation 50% of that leased is out and the balance is now getting leased out. We have another 2 million sq ft in the pipeline out of which about 1 million sq ft is leased out and the balance is to be marketed. That was the main reason why the company shifted it's focus from leasing activities towards residential.

Because residential as we all know is not a very talk heavy model, you start selling. One thing good about these residential projects is that we have been able to acquire land at a very low cost. We are in a position to pass on the benefit of the low cost land to the customer. So, we are getting good response in our residential projects.

Commercial is going through a tough phase. We feel other 1-1.5 years things would be like this but then people who are ready with commercial space would be people who would really benefit with the demand coming back into commercial. I am not saying the rates will really jump up and go back to where they used to be. But even if the rates don’t jump up and we are able to fill up the buildings we are going to get a very reasonable rental income.

Q: Are you confident of scaling that debt by possibly FY13, something which has been spoken about earlier?

A: Definitely. By end of 2012 we will get it down to about 50%. We are Rs 1,100 crore and out of Rs 1,100 crore we are Rs 150 in the bank. So the effective that is below Rs 1000 crore, it is about Rs 950. By the end of this year we will bring it down to half.

We will bring it below Rs 500 crore. So debt is not a concern at all because the cash flows with the company are good. The residential sales are picking up, the rental income has already started there and the rental income itself is the one which we have right now is good enough to take care of the interest burden of the company.

Q: With respect to the slowdown in leasing activity could you tell us has there been any degrowth in volume or pricing?

A: Not really. What ever degrowth happened in pricing happened about 1.5 years back, things really came down. In certain areas they came down to half, certain areas they corrected by about 30%. Now at the corrected rates, the volumes are picking up.