This real estate developer eyes Rs 10,000 crore in full-year bookings with a pickup in property demand

Godrej Properties — one of the country's largest real estate developers — expects to secure Rs 10,000 crore in bookings within the year ending March 2023, the first half of which saw a jump of about 60 percent. Pirojsha Godrej, Executive Chairman at Godrej Properties, told CNBC-TV18 that the management expects the second half of the current financial year to be much stronger sequentially "as usually the case is".

Its bookings in the April-September period reached almost Rs 5,000 crore, in line with its full-year guidance of Rs 10,000 crore, he said. "We are well set to achieve that and hopefully exceed. (I am) feeling very good about the financial year as a whole."

If achieved, the value of sales bookings would have increased by 27 percent compared with the previous year.

His remarks follow close on the heels of the property developer reporting a 54.5 percent year-on-year jump in net profit for the July-September period to Rs 55 crore. Its revenue expanded 27.6 percent to Rs 165 crore.

Godrej said the company aims to have a lineup of projects worth a gross developable value — which means the estimated value of a proposed project — a minimum Rs 15,000 crore for the full year.

The company achieved significant growth in collections in the July-September, with operating cash flows from being just above break even in the three months to June 2022 to about Rs 720 crore in the following quarter," he said. "I think operations were reasonably strong,” Godrej added.

The property major's ambitious plans come about at a time when many experts believe real estate is in for a multi-year upcycle. Major central banks around the globe are raising benchmark interest rates to tame red-hot inflation.

Godrej hinted at more price hikes in the the company over the next 3-4 years. “We have seen some price increases, but so far it has been more to pass on the kind of inflationary activity that has been evident," he added.

Godrej Properties shares have gained a little more than one percent in the past one month, a period in which the Nifty benchmark has risen about five percent.