Puravankara looking to create up to Rs 2,000 cr realty fund
Realty firm Puravankara plans to set up a real estate fund of up to Rs 2,000 crore to develop affordable housing projects, primarily in key markets of Bengaluru, Mumbai, Pune, Chennai and Hyderabad. Buoyed by healthy sales bookings of over Rs 1,100 crore till December in the current fiscal, the company has lined up launch of 15 new projects by March next year entailing an investment of about Rs 3,200 crore in construction, spread over the next five years. “We are planning to create a real estate platform with Rs 1,500-2000 crore fund for development of affordable housing projects under our 'Provident' brand,” the company's MD Ashish R Puravankara told PTI. The Bengaluru-based developer is in talks with few investors to set up this platform within six months, he said. Ashish noted that affordable housing segment has been performing well on the back of several initiatives such as infrastructure status and interest subsidies. The company would launch six new projects under its low- cost housing brand 'Provident' and eight projects under premium 'Puravankara' brand. Ashish said the company has achieved 29 per cent growth in sales bookings at Rs 1,102 crore in the first nine months of the current fiscal, as against Rs 853 crore in the year-ago period. “We have achieved these sales from our existing projects as the company has not launched any projects during April- December period of this financial year,” he said. In the entire 2016-17 fiscal, the company sold properties worth Rs 1,168 crore. Asked about the sales bookings projection for the ongoing 2017-18 fiscal, Ashish said the company does not give any market guidance. Puravankara plans to launch at least two new projects in this quarter and expects robust sales bookings from existing as well as new inventories. Ashish said the property market has stabilised post implementation of new realty law RERA, GST and note ban. On debt, Ashish said it is stable at around Rs 2,200 crore but the interest cost has come down to about 10.7 per cent from 11.6 per cent. Last week, the company reported 15 per cent increase in consolidated net profit to Rs 25.64 crore for the December quarter of 2017-18, as against Rs 22.38 crore in the year-ago period. Its total income rose to Rs 454.90 crore from Rs 286.32 crore. Apart from Bengaluru, the company has projects in Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune, Kochi, Kolkata, Coimbatore, Mysore, Mangalore and Colombo. It has so far completed 65 residential and commercial projects, spanning over 36 million sq ft. At present, area under development is totalling 19.36 million sq ft and the company has a land bank of 73.36 million sq ft.