EMAAR INDIA TO PUT IN ₹2,000 CR OVER 2 YEARS

Realty major Emaar India will invest ₹2,000 crore over the next two years to complete all its ongoing 50 projects across the country, a top company official said.

Dubai-based Emaar Properties entered the Indian real estate market in 2005 in partnership with India’s MGF Development and invested ₹8,500 crore through the joint venture firm Emaar MGF Land.

In April 2016, Emaar Properties announced its decision to end the 11-year-old joint venture through the demerger. Since then, its Indian venture Emaar India is focusing on the execution of their ongoing projects.

“Our focus is on delivery. We are putting in place all components required to complete our ongoing projects. We have increased the number of labourers on sites to over 10,000 from 1,000 a year ago,” said Emaar India CEO Sanjay Malhotra .

The company has about 50 ongoing projects in Gurgaon, Jaipur, Lucknow, Mohali and Chennai comprising about 10,000 housing units.

“We have got completion certificates for 2,000 apartments since July last year and these units are being handed over to customers. We are targeting to hand over all 10,000 units in the next two years,” Malhotra added.

Asked about the investment, he said the company will infuse ₹1,000 crore each in the current and next financial year on construction.

Emaar India’s CEO said the company has raised ₹2,500 crore debt in last one year, of which about ₹1,500 crore was used to replace costlier debt and the rest on construction. The company currently has a debt of about ₹ 5,000 crore. It would be raising more debts for construction purpose but there would be no equity infusion from parent Emaar Properties.

Emaar India has brought in a new project management team to expedite projects.

In line with market trend, the company has cut price by 10-15% in projects on the Dwarka Expressway to clear unsold stocks. Asked about any new launches, Malhotra said the company could launch one or two projects later this year depending on the market condition.

Considering the current slow market condition, he said the company “will make what we can sell”. The demand currently is for apartments of lower ticket size, he said.

The real estate market, especially the housing sector, is facing a multi-year demand slowdown that has led to significant delays in delivery of projects and forced consumers to protest and even file legal cases.