Godrej expects muted first quarter

Plans to scale up biz after second quarter

Godrej Properties chairman Pirojsha Godrej expects a muted first quarter in FY22 in terms of sales for the company though he sees an increase in opportunities for buying land parcels and joint ventures due to liquidity issues among developers.

“We expect to see a significant impact in the first quarter but we would like to quickly scale up with new launches and expect momentum to pick up from the second quarter,” Godrej said during a conference call with analysts.

Godrej said there has been a 25 per cent reduction in labour strength from the pre-second Covid wave period and it is working on an incentive scheme to retain them.

Godrej said the company will invest the QIP money raised. It mopped up ~3,750 crore in March this year through that route.

“Good opportunities (for buyouts) are available but we want to be prudent in deployment (of funds),” he said.

Godrej added that benefits of deployment of funds will reflect in the profit and loss account during the next three to four years. “We expect much stronger margins from next year,” he said. He added that the scale of operations will increase in the next four to five years, and in FY23, the company expects booking value to cross ~10,000 crore.

Godrej Properties’ FY21 sales bookings went up 14 per cent yearon-year and the company has lined up 19 new launches in FY22.

It posted a loss of ~192 crore in Q4 of FY21 compared to a profit of ~102 crore in Q4 of FY20. The loss was owing to weak home sales in top cities. The company posted a quarterly loss for the first time in the last one year. It had seen a loss in the June quarter of FY20.

The company's total income fell 60 per cent to ~508 crore in Q4 of FY21 from ~1,261 crore during the corresponding period last year.