Lodha, India’s No.1 real estate developer, delivered its best ever quarterly pre-sales at INR 3,534 crores. Collections at INR 2,752 crores also grew 16% YoY. Net Debt reduced by INR 535 crores during the quarter to INR 6,730 crores. Commenting on the performance, Abhishek Lodha, MD & CEO, Lodha said “Strong underlying end-user demand for branded homes enabled us to deliver our best ever quarterly pre-sales. This was despite the fact that this is generally the weakest quarter of the year and we had no new locations launched in this quarter. With approx. 7 new locations planned to be launched in H2 starting with the upcoming festive season, we feel confident about delivering on our full-year pre-sales target of INR 14,500 crores. This confidence is supported by the increased conversion rates that we are now witnessing as customers start acting on their need for a high-quality home. We believe that India is in the early stages of a long term (15 year) housing cycle which will create immense employment and wealth for our citizens, and the trends on the ground continue to bear out our belief. Competition amongst lenders has continued to keep mortgage rates lower than pre-covid times.”
“With the likelihood of RBI lowering rates in 2024, we expect this to act as a further tail wind to the demand. Additionally, government’s planned roll out for incentives for affordable housing will act as a much-needed demand booster for housing at the affordable end of the spectrum. The added 2 new projects with a GDV of approx. INR 2,300 crores in Q2 in different micro-markets of MMR. With this we have Lodha delivers its best ever quarterly pre-sales of INR 3,534 Cr., continues to reduce debt already achieved approx. INR 14,300 crores of new business addition in 1HFY24 which is more than 80% of our guidance of INR 17,500 crores for the year. The collections were INR 2,752 crores growing 16% YoY,” he added.
“Lodha is pleased to note that, despite heightened business development activity in the first half, the net debt has continued to reduce, with reduction by INR 535 crores in Q2 to INR 6,730 crores. We remain on the path to achieve our full year guidance for reduction of net debt to lower of 0.5x equity and 1x Operating Cash flow, with further debt reduction seen in H2,” he said.
“Our strengthening balance sheet was further validated by CRISIL which recently upgraded the credit rating of the company to A+/Stable.”
During the quarter, Lodha received yet another exceptional score from the Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark (GRESB). It was ranked No.1 in the "Development Benchmark" among residential developers in Asia with a score of 100. In the “Standing Assets Benchmark", the company was ranked 8th in Asia (among 34 companies) with a score of 90. Lodha’s efforts in sustainability are increasingly being recognized by various leading global benchmarks. These exceptional scores from GRESB are in addition to the strong validation already achieved from S&P Global, FTSE and Morningstar Sustainalytics during previous quarters.
