Sitting on a huge cash pile, Godrej Properties plans to invest around Rs 7,500 crore over the next 12-18 months on acquisition and development of new real estate projects. Godrej Executive Chairman Pirojsha Godrej sounded upbeat on the growth potential in the housing and commercial real estate segments especially in four major markets -- Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), Delhi-NCR, Bengaluru and Pune -- where the company has a huge presence.

"We will invest USD 1 billion (around Rs 7,500 crore) over the next 12-18 months on development of new projects," Pirojsha said, adding that the planned investments would be in mix of equity and debt.

Godrej Properties, the largest listed realty firm in the last fiscal in terms of sales bookings, acquires new projects through outright purchase of land parcels and also forming joint ventures with land owners.

Pirojsha said the company acquired three projects in the third quarter of this fiscal and the pipeline is strong."Q4 should be good for us in both sales bookings and new project acquisitions. We are likely to close many deals this quarter," he hoped.

In March last year, Godrej Properties had raised Rs 3,750 crore through Qualified Institutional Placement (QIP) process as part of its objective to strengthen the company's balance sheet and future business growth.

Its net debt is mere Rs 313 crore as on December 31, 2021. The debt equity ratio is also only 0.04.

When asked about entering into new cities, Pirojsha said: "We are interested in Hyderabad. But it’s not our top priority. There are huge opportunities in top four key markets where we have a major presence."

The company intends to enter Hyderabad in a big way and not just for development of one or two projects, he said. On operational performance, Pirojsha said the company is likely to achieve an all-time high sale bookings in the 2021-22 financial year, beating the last year's record of Rs 6,725 crore.