DLF plans 5-6m sq ft new launches ahead, says CFO

Ashok Tyagi, CFO of DLF said they have seen good response to the new launch, Sky Court in new Gurgaon. In the next few months, the realty player is looking to launch 5 to 6 million square feet of projects in the golf course region. He also informed that the company is in talks with potential buyers and are just a few weeks away from the closure of its wind farm sale agreement.

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Tyagi also told CNBC-TV18 that their Bangalore launch has done pretty well in FY13. However, Indore seems to be a slow market at the moment, he opined. Besides, the company's net debt will be in the range of Rs 18,500 to Rs 19,000 crore by the end of FY13, he added. Tyagi also emphasised on the need to issue 4.8 percent fresh equity to bring down promoter stake and added that DLF will be launching an IPP by June to meet SEBI guidelines. Here is the edited transcript of the interview on CNBC-TV18. Q: Can you start off by walking us through what kind of launches you have penciled in for this calendar year itself and what kind of pre-sales responses you are getting already for the Delhi NCR region first?
A: In the Delhi NCR region we have already launched projects in the new Gurgaon region, that is the newer sectors. We had an excellent response to our product called Skycourt in December. We have products lined up for launch in Phase 5 Golf Course Road and in the new Gurgaon region through the next few months and hopefully, you should see most of them coming up for launch across the next few months. Q: Can you give us some ballpark idea of what kind of square footage you are talking about in terms of new offers from the Gurgaon and NCR region and what kind of average rates you may actually be able to achieve in that region now?
A: We have done about a million square feet in December. So we are targeting another couple of million square feet launches in the new Gurgaon region and between five-six million square feet launch over the next few months in Phase 5 Golf Course Road region.
I can't time it exactly, whether it will be February or March or April but this is the plan across the near term. We will continue to do launches in the new Gurgaon region through the year as we continue to get approvals and there is demand for our projects. So far, the demand has been exceptionally good for whatever we have launched and the price points that we have been able to achieve have been very good. Q: Your investors would have been quite encouraged by the end or rapping up of the Aman Resorts and the Mumbai plot sale but, the next step in your deleveraging process are the wind power business or any other properties that you have for sale. Can you give us a timeline and what you intend to achieve in 2013 on that front?
A: Mumbai is done. The agreement for Aman Resorts is signed and we expect the funding to happen in this quarter. As far as the wind farm is concerned, we are few weeks away from the complete closure of the agreement and we could potentially get the funding this quarter or may be it could flow in the next quarter.
Our expectation is that at the end of these three major divestments, which is Mumbai, Aman and the wind farm, our net debt should be in the range of Rs 18500 to 19000 crore versus Rs 23000 crore in September. Hereon, the next major event as and when it happens will be the capital action that we will need to do as per the SEBI guidelines. That should get the net debt to a stable number for the medium term and from then on the operating cash flows take over because we don't have any big ticket non-chores lined up beyond that.
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Q: Is there a timeline in place for the wind power sale, has a potential buyer already been identified or are you still in the market for that?
A: We are talking to a potential buyer but, the deal hasn’t been closed. It will be inappropriate for me to divulge anything beyond that. We are expecting a closure in the short-term and let us see how many more weeks it takes.
Another thing about the new launches is that unlike in the past because of the new accounting guidelines, the new launches will lead to cash flows clearly appearing earlier. But, the P&L impact of the new launches will be lagged by a few quarters because that is what the new accounting guidelines dictate. Q: What has the experience been in the other key markets like Lucknow and Bangalore, both in terms of square footage and what kind of free sales response you have been getting, how much of that may come into this calendar year itself?
A: We did one launch in Bangalore in this calendar year and it has done well. We did a launch in Chandigarh. It was a plotted colony and independent floors have done well. We continue to sell plots in Lucknow and Indore. Lucknow has done very well, but Indore is a slightly slower market. However, it is beginning to pickup now.
We continue to do our sales in Chennai and in Kochi. So these continue to be the markets that we are operating in. In the last 12 to 18 months, we have been focused on it and that focus will continue for the next 12 months in an extremely aggressive timeline of handovers. We are handing over almost 30,000 million plus square feet within a period of 24 months from January 1, 2012 till March 2014.
A lot of focus and attention has also been driven on the actual handing over and in places like Chennai, once you hand over, hopefully we will have stronger credibility as we come back into the market for further launches. Q: You alluded to the equity offering which you will do to pare down promoter stake, the institutional placement programme (IPP) is coming in the middle of the year. I know final pricing is difficult to call so many months ahead but, even a ballpark idea of how much money you would end up raising through that exercise?
A: From an IPP standpoint, we will need to issue about 4.7 to 4.8 percent fresh equity to come down to promoters stake being 75 percent which will be ballpark about 8 crore shares. So you pick the share price of your choosing and multiply by 8 crore and that is the number that will be.