Godrej Properties sees robust portfolio launches in H2FY15

Godrej Properties sees robust portfolio launched for the second half of FY15 said MD & CEO, Pirojsha Godrej in an interview to CNBC-TV18.

According to him the real estate market is likely to pick up in Mumbai and Haryana. “Now with new State governments in place in both Maharashtra and Haryana, our sense is that the real estate market in both these cities and for that matter in the rest of the country should start picking up," he added.

The company has new launches planned in Pune, NCR and Nagpur.

Real estate developer Godrej Properties ' second quarter consolidated net profit jumped 35.9 percent year-on-year to Rs 46.6 crore led by lower tax rate and minority interest payment. Profit in the year-ago period was Rs 34.3 crore.Below are the transcript bytes of his interview with CNBC-TV18’sOn Q2 earnings:Our revenue has slightly dipped this quarter and our profit actually increased quite substantially. We are at 36 percent increase in net profit. Overall I think the quarter has been a very good one given the environment specially. Keep in mind given the accounting standards for real estate, the revenue recognition in profit is based on project completion. Actually our quarter sales performance was exceptionally strong; we nearly tripled our sales about 170 percent growth in sales this quarter. We had sales of 1.4 million sq.ft or Rs 880 crores, one of the highest single quarter sales performance the company has ever had.On new launches:We have new launches planned in Mumbai especially but also in Pune and new phase launches in places like Nagpur and NCR. I think the launch portfolio for the rest of the financial year looks very robust. We already had eight new projects or new phase launches in the first two quarters of the year and we hope to sustain that momentum going forward. We also have a large number of projects that will be hopefully coming for revenue recognition soon. Two of the important ones that we expect to see enter revenue recognition either this quarter or the next quarter are our project Godrej Summit in Gurgaon and our project Godrej Central here in Mumbai.On government reforms:The real estate sector has been through a sluggish period for the last couple of years in most cities. Especially the two cities you mentioned. In my sense with the economy starting to improve, hopefully with the new government being more pro-growth, they have already announced several reforms that are beneficial to the real estate sector. Also now with new State governments in place in both Maharashtra and Haryana, our sense is that the real estate market in both these cities and for that matter in the rest of the country should start picking up which most importantly should see benefits to volumes increasing but also over the medium term I think will result in some levels of price increase as well.