According to a Firstcall Research report, Prestige Estates Projects achieved a turnover of Rs 475.3 crore for the second quarter of the current year (2013-14) as against Rs 241.4 crore in the corresponding quarter of the previous year. The company has reported an EBITDA of Rs 147.5 crore and a net profit of Rs 77.6 crore against Rs 45.7 crore reported respectively in the corresponding quarter of the previous year. The company has reported an EPS of Rs 2.22 for the second quarter as against an EPS of Rs 1.39 in the corresponding quarter of the previous year.
CMD Irfan Razack, says the company is trying to keep its dependence on debt very low and has been able to bring down the borrowing costs by 1 percent this fiscal. He said acquiring land projects is an ongoing business plan for the company. Prestige Estates recently has launched its ambitious project Lake Side Habitat and the pre-launch sales had been very encouraging, said Razack on CNBC-TV 18.
Also Read: Should you buy or rent a house in 2014 ?
Citi rates Prestige as buy with a target of Rs 170 on the back of a strong execution track record. "The company has impressive growth plans in varied real estate segments, with a focus on residential and commercial. It has attractive geographic exposure to Bangalore and several South India cities, which have been more resilient as seen in the last downturn. Prestige has a growing rental annuity portfolio," it said.
Below is the edited transcript of Irfan Razack interview on CNBC-TV18
Q: First could you tell us a little more about Lakeside Habitat; you have launched your largest project ever recently so what have been the pre-launch sales that we have seen in this quarter per se?
A: We did a pre-launch of Prestige Lakeside Habitat in this quarter that too it happened in the end of October. So, it is just November and December sales and it has done extremely well. It has caught the imagination of a lot of our buyers and overall we have had a great run on the sales as of Presitge Lakeside Habitat. It is still going and we have a formal launch on January 19.
Q: It seems as though it has been quite a successful quarter for you or maybe even six zestful first half for Prestige Estates. Is it then fair to assume that you are going to possibly exceed your target of around 8 million square feet which you had guided the market for earlier in terms of total sales for the fiscal?
A: We should easily do that. When we started the financial year and we guided for Rs 4,300 crore many of our peers and even the market analysts were quite skeptical and they said it is a very ambitious target. They were probably trying to see whether we will ever achieve that. However, I am very happy to say that in the third quarter itself we have come very close to achieving it and if things go well in the next quarter we should exceed it.
Q: What would you guide for in terms of possible exceeding that target like if you are working with Rs 4,300 crore; just a ballpark figure?
A: I don't want to guide anything more than what we have already guided. Whatever extra we do that is extra. We have sort of did that high jump and we did our little planning and we knew that we could do it that is why we guided that number. So, I am happy to say that we have somehow come close to it in the third quarter itself.
Q: From last quarter to this quarter have we seen an improvement in the average realisations and roughly in Q3 where would they stand at?
A: This quarter has been the best ever in terms of sales. The average realisations have also gone up and all in all it has been pretty good.
Q: Just taking that point forward, because it takes may be a few quarters for it to reflect on your P&L, in terms of total sales but going into FY15 what would your target be in terms of possible sales generation for the company given the other number of projects which could come up?
A: Not only the financial year 2014-2015, the year 2014 itself is going to be a mixed year. The first five to six months are going to be a lot of distraction because of the general election. Why I am saying that is because the files will not move as fast as you are expecting; maybe the meetings will not happen frequently. I am saying this from my experience. So, as closer we get to the elections, approvals and all that may not happen as per whatever we have planned.
We have a set of approvals which are there and we are trying to look and see whether we can do the same run rate that we have done for 2012-2013 and 2013-2014. Maybe the next year is going to be in a similar fashion. We have a number of projects which are lined up but it all depends on how soon we can get approvals. However, I believe the second half after the general elections things are really going to perk up and there is going to be a different mood altogether.
Q: Is the company looking to acquire any kind of a land bank in Bangalore, Chennai or anywhere?
A: It is an ongoing process. Whatever is offered to us we do an evaluation with due diligence and we find it to be reasonable. If we find that the numbers are working we do make commitment. It is part of our daily business and as and when something nice comes up there is no way that we won't be looking at it or ignore it. However, at the same time there is no such thing that as a programme we are going to accumulate this much land; that can't happen because we don't want to block unnecessary capital for it.
However, our philosophy has been whatever you tie up try and see how you can churn it out into sales, into the market with approvals and all that as soon as possible so that you don't lock-in your monies.
Q: There is a high expectation that the inflation numbers in January could disappoint and hence the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) could possibly move on the repo on the upside again. What would that mean in terms of borrowing costs for Prestige Estates going into FY15 and do you think that there could be enough amount of cash accruals internally for you to possibly suffice or to pay for projects and not depend that much on borrowing?
A: This is always a hobson's choice. It is always good to keep debt as low as possible but whenever it is required it is required. As of now on our borrowing cost itself in this financial year, we have managed to bring it down by about a percentage point because we had a lot of assets which were on lease, rental discounting model so our CFO has done good negotiation and moved certain assets from one bank to the other. Because of that we have been able to bring down our entire cost of borrowing.
In the long-term I believe the best thing to do is to see how debt light we are and see how we can manage with our own cash accruals and whatever cashflows that are coming in. However, it is again a matter of the health of the economy and how the sales pan out and how the collection comes in. However, as of today, though we are doing a lot of capex projects like malls, hotels and some IT parks, we are trying to keep our dependence on debt as little as possible. At the same time seeing that we fund this from our own cash accruals but it is going to be a mixed bag. I can't say that this is the only way that we are going to do it or that is the only way we will do it. We have to again play the year as we go along making sure that we don't get ourselves geared up so much that it becomes impossible to manage.
Anda sedang membaca artikel tentang
Have cut borrowing costs by 1% this fiscal: Prestige Est
Dengan url
http://gayafashionshow.blogspot.com/2013/12/have-cut-borrowing-costs-by-1-this.html
Anda boleh menyebar luaskannya atau mengcopy paste-nya
Have cut borrowing costs by 1% this fiscal: Prestige Est
namun jangan lupa untuk meletakkan link
Have cut borrowing costs by 1% this fiscal: Prestige Est
sebagai sumbernya
0 komentar:
Posting Komentar