Sobha Limited has informed the Exchange about Transcript of Analysts/Institutional Investor Meet/Con. Call
... Ill
SOBHA
PASSION AT WORK
Date: November 19, 2022
To The Deputy Manager Department of Corporate Services BSE Limited, PJTowers, Dalal Street Mumbai - 400 001 Scrip Code: 532784
Dear Sir/ Madam,
To The Manager The National Stock Exchange of India Limited Exchange Plaza, Plot No C/1, G Block Bandra Kurla Complex Mumbai - 400 051 Scrip Code: SOBHA
Sub: Transcript of Meetings with Analysts/ Institutional Investors
In continuation of our letter dated November 11, 2022 and November 14, 2022, please find enclosed herewith the transcript of the conference call held on Tuesday, the 15th day of November, 2022 with the Investors/ Analysts to brief the operational and financial performance of the Company for the quarter and half year ended September 30, 2022.
We request you to take the aforesaid information on record in terms of Regulation 30 of SEBI (Listing Obligations and Disclosure Requirements) Regulations, 2015 and the same is available on the website of the Company.
Yours sincerely,
FOR SOBHA LIMITED
~ VIGHNESHWAR G BHAT
COMPANY SECRETARY & COMPLIANCE OFFICER MEMBERSHIP NO.: 16651
SO BH A LIMITED REGO & CORPORA TE OFFICE : 'SOBHA', SARJAPUR - MARATHAHALLI OUTER RING ROAD, SELLl\NDIJR PCST, BAN GALORE - 560 ! 03 . !N OIA CIN; L4520-I KAl 995PLCO l 8475 J TEL: +91-80-49320000 ! FAX: +9 180 49320444 J www.scbha.com
“Sobha Limited
Q2 FY 2023 Earnings Conference Call”
November 15, 2022
MANAGEMENT: MR. JAGADISH NANGINENI – MANAGING DIRECTOR,
SOBHA LTD. MR. YOGESH BANSAL –CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER, SOBHA LTD. MR. RAMESH BABU –SNR. VP, FINANCE, SOBHA LTD. MR. VIGHNESHWAR BHAT –COMPANY SECRETARY AND COMPLIANCE OFFICER, SOBHA LTD. MR. SOUMYADEEP SAHA – HEAD - INVESTOR RELATIONS, SOBHA LTD.
ANALYST:
MR. ADHIDEV CHATTOPADHYAY – ICICI SECURITIES.
Page 1 of 14
Sobha Limited November 15, 2022
Moderator:
Ladies and gentlemen, good day. And welcome to the Q2 FY ‘23 Earnings Conference Call of
Sobha Limited, hosted by ICICI Securities. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the
listen only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation
concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by
pressing star then zero on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being
recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Adhidev Chattopadhyay from ICICI Securities.
Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Adhidev Chattopadhyay: Good evening. On behalf of ICICI Securities, I'd like to welcome everyone on the call today.
Today from the management of Sobha Limited, we have with us Mr. Jagadish Nangineni, the
Managing Director; Mr. Yogesh Bansal, the Chief Financial Officer; Mr. Ramesh Babu, the
Senior VP, Finance; Mr. Vighneshwar Bhat, the Company Secretary and Compliance Officer;
and Mr. Soumyadeep Saha Head IR I'd now like to hand over the call to the management for
their opening remarks. Over to you. Thank you.
Jagadish Nangineni:
Good evening, everyone. Thank you, Adhidev, for your kind introduction and for organizing
this call. My team and I are happy to interact with you post our second quarter results of this
financial year. We have already shared the operational update of the company in early October
2022. The investor presentation for this quarter based on the financial results adopted by the
Board can be downloaded from sobha.com.
The three months of July to September 2022 quarter was excellent for us on several fronts. I'll
quickly give some color on our real estate sales, launches, collections, debt, project completions,
manufacturing and contracts. Also, I would also like to briefly touch upon some modifications
in accounting policy that we have adopted based on recommendation of our new auditors.
As for sales, we have achieved our higher sales value of INR 1,164 crores and highest price
realization of INR 8,709 per square feet. This was done even with new launches only done
towards end of the quarter, which shows steady demand in an inflationary and increasing interest
rate regime. This quarter, as you have all seen, we saw two more interest hikes by RBI to take
the repo rate to 5.9% and hence, the home loans now are north of 8.5%.
Price hikes were done during this quarter in a calibrated manner. And based on that, we have
achieved a 3.3% growth over the previous quarter and that seems to have been successfully
absorbed by our customers. Bangalore for the second quarter in a row has done more than 1
million square feet of sales and mainly aided by our presence in multiple micro markets of the
city. We have to keep in mind that this was achieved with several impairments in the form of
infrastructural breakdowns in cities, due to rain and inauspicious periods, which typically slows
the sales process.
So this, we believe, showcases increasing depth of demand, wider brand acceptance of Sobha,
sustained customer confidence, higher affordability, aspiration for higher quality homes and
Page 2 of 14
Sobha Limited November 15, 2022
larger ones. In addition to all this, we believe in certain pockets of few cities, there is
demand/supply mismatch in the favor of far higher demand versus lower supply. Hence, we are
able to achieve some of the consistent and good numbers in this quarter. Hence, overall, a good
quarter for the sales.
Coming to the rest of the country, Trivandrum, Capital City of Kerala has become our 11th city
of our real estate operations with the launch of Sobha Meadows, Whispering Hill. Initial sales
also have been very encouraging in the city. During the quarter, we have launched two more
projects, Sobha Insignia and 3 more towers of Sobha Brooklyn towers at TownPark.
In addition to this, we have made good progress on future launches, which are part of our pipeline
in Bangalore, Hyderabad and a new phase launch in Gurgaon, which is part of existing
unreleased inventory. With these, we have currently have an inventory of about 23 million
square feet, about 12 million of that in ongoing and 11 million in forthcoming projects.
This gives us good visibility of inventory pipeline, while we continue to pursue new business
development and bringing existing land bank to inventory stage. Our contracting and
manufacturing too is witnessing improved activity for delivery of in-house requirement and
external clients. So during the quarter, we received new civil contracts order worth of about INR
140 crores for building a commercial office space in Bangalore.
In real estate, we have partially completed four projects and one quarter development with a
total developable area of 1.28 million square feet ready for customer handover. I'm also happy -
- very happy to share that we have achieved highest ever operational collections in the history
of our company, 13.35 billion, or this is completely due to our relentless focus on operational
excellence and hence resulted in a net cash flow generation of INR 221 crores to INR 2.21
billion, bringing down our debt in the eighth consecutive quarter to current INR 18.89 billion.
The cost of debt is also under control at 8.57% at the end of the quarter. And coming to the last
point, which is with this quarter, I'd like to mention that we have new auditors after KPMG
completed their term. They have suggested some changes in the accounting procedures, which
we thought are more appropriate and hence gone ahead with the same.
The main changes are to do with treatment of interest on customer advances, which was earlier
reported both in revenue and cost as interest income and expense, reallocation of borrowing
costs between projects and lands, recognition of additional revenue increase of joint
development projects. All of the above have contributed to minor changes in the financial
numbers of prior periods purely from an accounting standpoint. In case of any specific queries
in this regard, please do reach out to our Investor Relations team. We'll be happy to address
them.
Page 3 of 14
With this brief commentary, I would like to hand it over to Yogesh, our Chief Financial Officer,
to give his comments on the financial quarterly performance.
Sobha Limited November 15, 2022
Yogesh Bansal:
Thank you. Good evening, everyone. I would like to summarize our performance of Q2 FY '23
and half year ended 30th September 2022. Sales highlights for Q2 and H1 FY '23 - This quarter,
we sold total of 13,36,828 square feet in Pan India. This takes the half yearly total sales volume
to 26,95,548 square feet which is our highest for any half year ended.
Our quarterly sales volume has been holding steady at 1.3 million square feet since Q4 FY '21,
except for COVID impacted Q1 FY '22 quarter. Bangalore has achieved 1 million square feet of
sales for consecutive quarter aided by new launches and steady demand. For the half year total
sale volume was INR 23.10 billion, and Sobha’s share of INR 19.13 billion, both highest ever
performance for a half year period.
Total sales volume up by 20%, sale value by 35%, Sobha’s share of sale value by 34%, , as
compared to H1 FY22. Cash flow highlights Q2 FY '23 - We achieved highest ever quarterly
collection in Q2 FY '23 of INR 13.35 billion, higher by 19% as compared to Q1 FY '23 and 46%
compared to Q2 FY '22 last year.
Out of this real estate collection was INR 10.82 billion, higher by 22% Q-on-Q and 49%, year-
on-year basis. Contractual and manufacturing contributed INR 2.53 billion, higher by 10% over
Q1 FY '23 and 33% over Q2 FY '22. Net operating cash flow was INR 3.61 billion, higher by
93% compared to Q1 FY '23 and 104% compared to Q2 FY '22.
During the quarter, construction spends is INR 4.53 billion which is highest quarterly allocation
till date. Net cash flow for the quarter is INR 2.21 billion, note that during the quarter, we have
paid dividend also of INR 28.5 crores. It is an increase of 64% from Q2 FY '22. As on 30th
September, net-debt stand at INR 18.88 billion. During the quarter, we have reduced debt by
INR 2.21 billion. Net debt-to-equity be reduced 0.77%. Our borrowing cost for the quarter,
quarter ended 30th September '22 is 8.57%, which has slightly increased from last quarter.
Quarterly financial outflow was INR 534 million.
Cash flow highlights for H1 FY '23 - For the first half year operating cash inflow improved to
INR 24.53 billion, higher by 50% compared to H1 FY '22. The increase is supported by 55%
higher collection from real estate of INR 19.7 billion, 34% higher collection from contract and
manufacturing business compared to H1 FY '22.
During the first half of the year, our construction outflow was INR 8.40 billion, an increase of
66% from H1 FY '22. We have generated net operating cash flow of INR 5.47 billion during H1
'23, that same up by 76% as compared to H1 '22. Free cash flow generated in H1 FY '23 is at
INR 4.48 billion, up by 499% compared to H1 FY '22. In the last eight quarters, we have
generated total INR 11.61 billion of free cash flow.
Page 4 of 14
Sobha Limited November 15, 2022
Financial highlights, Q2 '23 - Total income for Q2 '23 stand at INR 6.77 billion, up by 19% as
compared to Q1 '23. Real estate revenue for Q2 '23 stands at INR 4.44 billion. Contractual and
manufacturing vertical revenue for Q2 '23 stands at INR 2.23 billion. EBITDA for Q2 '23 stands
at INR 1.02 billion margin at 15%, PBT for Q2 '23 stands at INR 0.34 billion margin at 5% PAT
for Q2 '23 stands, INR 0.16 billion, margin at 2%.
Financial highlights for H1 '23 - Total income for H1 '23 stands at INR 12.47 billion. Real estate
revenue for H1 '23 stands at INR 9 billion, contractual and manufacturing vertical revenue for
H1 '23 stands at INR 3.05 billion. EBITDA for H1 '23 stands at INR 1.80 billion margin at 14%.
PBT stands at INR 0.43 billion margin at 3%, PAT that is INR 0.21 billion, margin at 2%. I
would like to thank you all the participation for the patient hearing, and now we can open the
floor for question-and-answer-session.
Moderator:
The first question is from the line of Pritesh Sheth from Motilal Oswal.
Pritesh Sheth:
So firstly, if I look at your inventory from both ongoing and completed projects, is right now at
around nine months, which is pretty much lowest in industry, so is it now we would be
aggressively looking in terms of launches? I mean, last two quarters, obviously, we have had
project launches, but those were on an average 1 million, 1.5 million square feet. But do we
think that we need to accelerate on these launches from here on to have a further growth on the
pre-sales numbers?
Jagadish Nangineni:
Good evening, Pritesh. If you look at our inventory, that's about total inventory that we have is
about 23 million square feet, a little over 23 million square feet. So I think with the current run
rate of about five, between 5 million to 6 million square feet, we have overall inventory of about
four to five-plus years. Of course, we do not show the entire inventory that is still
underdeveloped, under various stages, where we are still, where we are confident that it is going
to get into inventory.
So we will continue to add to the new inventory, both from our existing land bank and with new
business development that we are going to do. So to answer to your question, first, we do believe
that we have reasonable inventory visibility. And that's been one of our biggest strengths. And
going forward also, we are making incremental progress and but a steady progress in getting
new inventories to, for the pipeline. And yes, you are right that the pace of sales has increased,
and that's what we have to cater to going forward.
Pritesh Sheth:
Right. So probably in the second half, what is the visible pipeline that we have out of 10 million,
11 million square feet of new projects, what is the visible pipeline we have in terms of launches
for second half particularly?
Jagadish Nangineni:
Yes. It's a little tentative, but if everything goes right, I think we can bring about 4 million square
feet of space in terms of new launches.
Page 5 of 14
Sobha Limited November 15, 2022
Pritesh Sheth:
And in terms of margins for last couple of quarters, they are at like 13%, 14% on the EBITDA.
Obviously, I can understand contractual business has been impacted. But just in terms, if you
can comment on what are the current margins that we have in both residential and contractual?
And how do we see over a medium term or near to medium term over the next two, three years,
the residential margin should pan out? I understand the complexity of the accounting thing, but
just on a steady-state basis, what should be the residential margin that we should look at?
Jagadish Nangineni:
Yes, you're right that the margins have come down a bit in the last couple of quarters. I
mentioned it in my last, previous quarter call as well. This is largely to do with the contracts,
particularly which we have, there were issues in terms of cost escalation and some of the
contracts getting terminated during the COVID period, where we started work, but some of the
clients could not continue the projects.
So these are the ones which have affected the margins, both in Q1 and this quarter as well. And
we believe that it's largely done, and hopefully, things should get back to normal from next
quarter. Specific to real estate, I think we are at an EBITDA margin level, we are north of 25%
from here on. And at least for the projects which are getting completed in the next couple of
quarters. And for contractual, now going ahead, still because of the cost inflation, the contractual
environment looks still tough. And hence, we don't expect big changes in the margin, but I think
we will be able to manage it better from here on.
Pritesh Sheth:
And one last, if I may. So cash flow performance for this quarter and last five quarters, six
quarters have been really great. We have brought down debt to around INR 1,900 crores. It looks
like we should be at around INR 1,500 crores by year-end if this performance continues. So by
when we would start looking at investing into newer land acquisitions or newer land acquisitions
or newer JDAs and focus on further growth?
Jagadish Nangineni:
Growth is something that naturally we are going to invest in. Hence, I think that the same
performance we might not be able to continue in terms of cash flow generation, the pace at which
we were generating cash. So extrapolating and making it 1,500 by the end of financial year or
two or three quarters, we would also like to do it, but at the same time, we have developed a
reasonable business development pipeline. And as things come to fruition, we start investing in
those, probably we will not be able to achieve that number so quickly, but our goal is to
consistently keep reducing debt.
Moderator:
The next question is from the line of Puneet from HSBC.
Puneet J. Gulati:
Yes. Good performance on cash flows. And you also mentioned that you will not be able to
achieve INR 1,500 crores in a hurry so it seems like you're going ahead seriously on business
development. Can you talk a bit about what are your plans for monetizing your existing land as
well?
Page 6 of 14
Jagadish Nangineni:
When I say business development Puneet, for us, it is about getting what -- whether it's an
Sobha Limited November 15, 2022
existing land bank or new deals, getting them on to invent. So it's a combination of both. And
existing land bank, we are making steady progress. And I do not have exact timelines for each
one but the some of the land parcels which are large and which can get where we can get the
projects into an inventory stage such as Hoskote and even in Hosur.
The efforts are consistent and constant to make sure that they will come into an inventory stage.
So the timeline of that, I think we still have to give a few more years before which we can launch
the project. And meanwhile, while that's happening, I think I believe that we have reasonable
existing inventory to catch up with the kind of pace of sales that we are doing.
Puneet J. Gulati:
Okay. Sorry, did you say a few more years for Hoskote and Hosur?
Jagadish Nangineni:
Sorry, for I should not be combining both, but Hosur is in a very good -- a reasonably advanced
stage. We have certain small issues at the local level, which we are sorting out and that should
come a little bit faster. And Hoskote, the thing is we can get that into an inventory stage quickly-
- that's not the only objective that we have. We are trying to achieve two objectives there. One
is not only that we need to bring it, but also do it in a manner which is like a larger township and
with all integrated facilities inside it. And hence, it might take a little longer.
So based on how things progress in the next few quarters, on the land acquisition front when
we'll have to fill in the cheeszos there. Based on how we make the progress, we'll take a quick
call on whether to start doing start designing and putting up for approvals from the existing one
or we continue to do, keep progressing on the land acquisition, so that we bring out a project
which is much larger in scale at probably a year -- probably sometime in the future. So it's a
trade-off between the timeline and also making sure that it's a large and integrated piece versus
it's a quicker inventory stage. So that we will be able to take a call in the next quarter or 2.
Puneet J. Gulati:
Okay. My next question is on your entry into Trivandrum. This is another city that you've
entered. How does that impact management bandwidth and all other organization issues, of
entering multiple cities, while Bangalore still remains quite dominant, followed by NCR and
everything else is very, very sporadic in some sense.
Jagadish Nangineni:
It appears like that surely. However, if you see the way we are structured, I mean, we are thinking
Kerala as a single region. It's not necessarily that each city is separate because largely, the bylaws
are the same. The management is the same and even the sales teams are largely similar. And the
audience, the customer base is also from a geographic standpoint, it's reasonably well
understood. So Trivandrum specifically entering has not really taken any of our significant
bandwidth. In fact, the bandwidth of the Kerala management team has been much better utilized.
That's how I would look at it.
Page 7 of 14
Sobha Limited November 15, 2022
Puneet J. Gulati:
Understood. That's helpful. My last one is on the cost of borrowing. Now that cost of borrowing
has gone up a bit, if there were to be no more hikes, do you still expect your cost of borrowing
to go up? Or should it come down on account of some refinancings, et cetera?
Jagadish Nangineni:
We are continuously trying to do refinancing, but refinancing is not necessarily coming at the
similar cost, right? So this cost of borrowing is at the end of the quarter. We have already seen
some increases by some of the financial institutions because most of the finance cost is linked
to the MCLR rate so based on the cycle of that, it naturally gets triggered.
So I don't see it coming down, but since we are generating a positive cash flow, our ability to
hold on and try to see if we can get better rates is where we have an edge there. So while we try
to get better rates, but I don't think we'll be able to do lower than what we are doing. I mean --
if it happens, it might be one-off, but it's not regular tea. So in case there is no increase in the
interest rates going forward. That's great news. We should be able to be in a similar range.
Puneet J. Gulati:
Right. So in case there is no interest rate, your borrowing costs will also hold on here. There is
no lag effect, which is yet to come in, right? Is that the right understanding?
Jagadish Nangineni:
Yes, largely, that would be the case. Yes.
Moderator:
The next question is from the line of Parikshit Kandpal from HDFC Securities.
Parikshit D. Kandpal:
Congratulations on the commendable performance, especially on the debt reduction. So is it
right to understand again that this will be the almost the bottom level for the debt?
Jagadish Nangineni:
Good evening, Parikshit. From a debt standpoint, like I mentioned, our long-term goal is to keep
reducing the debt. And we have started, thankfully in the last few quarters of good cash flow
from the existing operations so like I mentioned earlier, we would like ideally like to use much
more of the free cash flow that's available to business development as well. So if that comes to
cushion, then probably it's not at the same pace as debt reduction. But at the same time, I will
not say it's the bottom most level. I don't know what's the time period that you're looking at, but
if it's in the next 2 or 3 years, then probably we should be doing better than what we are.
Parikshit D. Kandpal:
So my second question is the first to your total of 23 million square feet of upcoming and
ongoing unsold areas. It's about, as we said, 4 years of inventory. Roughly about INR 18,000
crores at the current prices in terms of valuation while cross development value. So every year,
if you are telling about seeing no growth at INR 4,000 or INR 4,500 crores so how do we intend
to replace it more from a 4-year perspective, this 18,000 any gets written down. So we need to
incur roughly if I take 1:6 or 1:7 conversion on GDB to land.
So we will need us about INR 2,400 crores, INR 2,500 crores on the land if we buy an outright
basis. So just wanted pick your brain on this INR 18,000 crores, INR 19,000 crores every year,
Page 8 of 14
we're running down 4,500 assuming. So how much do we intend to make this development in it
from own land and how much on the market?
Sobha Limited November 15, 2022
Jagadish Nangineni:
Good question, Parikshit. We have thankfully good land bank to start out with. And hence, if I
look at next couple of years, then probably we have to replace or add additional inventory to our
current ones, I think fairly about 40% to 50% of that can come from our existing land bank. And
the remaining, we'll have to do - we'll probably not necessarily do an outright, but it's a
combination of several structures that we need to do.
So we'll have to look at from what's our goal in terms of the overall sales, even if currently, we
are at between 5 million to 6 million square feet, if we increase it to - we would like to increase
it to gradually towards 7 to 8 and move towards 10, that's the our mid-term goal. If we have to
move towards that, probably this is the kind of investment that we will have to do.
So that will come from that, that will come from all these investments have to come from
naturally from existing cash flow that we are generating. Last year, we generated a cash flow of
about INR 515 crores. This year, we have already done about INR 450 crores, although about
150 of that has come through a land sale. So we are also in a similar run rate of about INR 500
crores to INR 600 crores this year as well. So I think to start with, even if we utilize two thirds
of it then we should be able to start filling out the requirement for the new pipeline that needs to
be created.
Parikshit Kandpal:
So basically, you're saying about INR 300 crores, you can invest towards capex on land, and we
can give you about 6 to 7x over INR 2,000 or INR 2,500 crores of gross development value l in
addition from the external sources?
Jagadish Nangineni:
That's right. That's to start out with, we'll see how opportunities and also what's the kind of
pipeline that we can build out. So we have to be, we have to balance between a little bit patient
and also we have to make sure that we fill in the pipeline too. So we have reasonably good
pipeline in terms of land already in place. So slowly, we are working towards it, and we will
start seeing them in the next couple of quarters.
Moderator:
The next question is from the line of Mohit Agrawal from IIFL.
Mohit Agrawal:
My first question, just in fourth quarter call, you had mentioned that for fiscal '23, the sales is
likely to be flattish on a year-on-year basis. Now if you look at the first half numbers and
assuming that first half numbers are repeated in second half, we easily see a 20% growth in
value. So what is the outlook in the second half? And what do you think has changed versus
what you had guided in the fourth quarter?
Jagadish Nangineni:
Good question, Mohit. I was happily wrong on the assumptions that remain in terms of flattish
growth. There were several reasons for which we have - we thought that it might be - there can
Page 9 of 14
Sobha Limited November 15, 2022
be potential reason for flattish or similar kind of volume what we have done last year, increasing
interest rates and probably new supply that's coming in, etcetera. Most of those have not dampen
the demand, and that's very heartening to see. And we continue to see reasonable demand even
after this, particularly the interest increases and also the price hikes that we have done.
Considering where we are in terms of the first two quarters and what we are witnessing on the
ground. I think we should be able to do much better than what we have, what we thought we
will do, which is similar to 5 million. I think potential for us to do beyond 5.5 million to close
to 6 million is quite there if everything works out for us.
Mohit Agrawal:
So a similar run rate in the second half or you could do better than that?
Jagadish Nangineni:
I think, if we are optimistic and some of the things work out, both in terms of getting some of
the new inventory in in Bangalore. And we are doing a new phase launch in Gurgaon, which is
in Sobhacity, about one million square feet. And both of them work out, probably we can do
much better than what we think. In the first half, we have done roughly about 2.7 million square
feet. We should be able to do more than 3 to 3.5 million square feet.
Mohit Agrawal:
And my second question is, when I look at your buyer profile, now more than 50% of your
buyers are coming from the IT/ITES segment. Just trying to understand, is it a Bangalore
standard or would you have a higher share or lower share of the IT and does that worry you in
case for slowdown, we're already seeing something in the global developed market. So what are
your thoughts on that?
Jagadish Nangineni:
Traditionally, since past more than a decade byer profile largely the Bangalore buyer profile has
remained similar. And Bangalore demand seems to be reasonably consistent even today. And if
you see the Bangalore, I mean, the tech talent and the opportunities that they have, that's both
wide and deep. So I'm really hoping that it does not impact the significant section. You can see
that the tech is not just one space. It's got several sub spaces. So small space is getting affected
surely yes, and that's grabbing a lot of headlines. But I think a lot of the other demand side,
which is in other sections of the tech, I think they are fairly stable. And that's where we are
seeing the demand still strong.
Moderator:
The next question is from the line of Murtuza Arsiwala from Kotak Securities.
Murtuza Arsiwala:
Sir, I just wanted a clarification on the change in accounting. And if I may draw the attention to
the notes to accounts fourth point where you put in much detail most of those numbers. So if I
read that right, essentially, what you're saying is, let's say, for the year 31st March 22, your
revenues because of the change are revised downwards by about 1.1 billion. Your expenses have
been revised down by about 1.7 billion. And consequently, PAT is revised upwards by about
500 million. Am I reading that right?
Jagadish Nangineni:
Largely, that's right.
Page 10 of 14
Murtuza Arsiwala:
That's how we want to read that entire Table, this is mostly do with the interest that you used to
accrue on advances from customers. It's mostly you around those accounting sort of routes?
Jagadish Nangineni:
Yes, that's right. Like I mentioned, there are three aspects to the big aspects which contributed
Sobha Limited November 15, 2022
to this change. First is the reallocation of the borrowing costs between projects and lands and
land advances Second one is how we treat the interest on customer advances, which was earlier
we used to have it both in note income, which was reported in revenue and cost and cost as
interest income, interest expense, that second.
Third is also a recognition of additional revenue in case of joint development projects. We used
to recognize only the revenue, which is our share as the revenue earlier. And now we are part of
it with a small accounting change, we are going to recognize part of the obligation that we have
to fulfil for the landowner as well. so...
Murtuza Arsiwala:
The landowner share would show up as an expense now as opposed to you recognizing net
revenues?
Jagadish Nangineni:
No. The cost of construction for the landowners, which we provide as a service to him, that will
come up as a revenue. And it will come out as a cost as well, on both sides.
Murtuza Arsiwala:
Okay. Thank you.
Jagadish Nangineni:
So in case you would like to understand it in more detail, and we'll be happy to take it offline.
Murtuza Arsiwala:
I think I'll want the third part, just get a bit sense or handle on that growth?
Moderator:
Next question is from the line of Parvez Qazi from Edelweiss Securities.
Parvez Qazi
Congrats questions for a great set of numbers, especially on the cash flow side. So my question
is on the pricing front. I mean, you have said that demand remains strong despite the mortgage
rate hikes, What is the outlook on the pricing side one for at a systemic level and second
especially for your set of projects going ahead?
Jagadish Nangineni:
Now price hikes. I think we are largely there in terms of what we should be able to do
opportunistic in terms of there is still demand surge that's happening in specific projects, we'll
be able to, we can look at those, but it's going to be a little bit calibrated. And the increments are
going to be far smaller in nature.
Sorry, Parvez, just to add to that. Our objective earlier, it's clear that across the industry was to
increase the price to cover a sudden increase in the cost. While that has happened, we have also
seen that it's helped that the demand continue to be strong in spite of the pricing increases. Now
it's very tricky now we have to see how the price increases and the demand stabilization, where
Page 11 of 14
do we balance it that we'll have to closely watch on a project-by-project and location-by-location
and sort of balance it.
Sobha Limited November 15, 2022
Parvez Qazi:
Second question is on geographical diversification. We are present in almost 12, 13 cities will
probably enter Hyderabad soon. So do you have a number in mind that maybe two years, three
years, five years down the line, you would want who have a certain share outside Bangalore.
Jagadish Nangineni:
Yes. I mean if we have to go to a larger number in terms of volume, then we will have to be
more, get more of this volume from outside Bangalore. Right now, like we have seen that 1
million square feet in Bangalore is a possible scenario if we have the right inventory and the
right conditions are present. So even if you take 4 million to 5 million square feet from
Bangalore, the stock rate has to come from the rest of the cities that we operate in. So in the
medium term, I think it should, the current … I mean there will be about part of it more than
maybe 40% coming from outside Bangalore.
Moderator:
The next question is from the line of Siddharth Misra from Fidelity International.
Siddharth Misra:
This is just a follow-up to the previous answer, which you gave. So you mentioned that you
wanted to increase pre-sales gradually and diversify across geographies, and you wanted to go
towards 7 million to 8 million square feet and medium term towards 10 million square feet. So
just wanted to understand the 7 million to 8 million square feet, do you have the visibility of
reaching there in the next two to three years, or it will be further out, what is the time frame of
this pre-sales based on the visibility which you have right now?
Jagadish Nangineni:
Siddharth, there, our goal is to have a consistent pre-sales of about 7 million to 8 million square
feet. So I mean, consistency might take a little bit longer, maybe over three years. But maybe if
there is a certain, because of certain projects, certain scenarios where there is a, we can achieve
a faster sale in a few projects. Then I think we can achieve over 6 million also in this year or
next year. So I don't know if that answers your question, which is how fast we can. We can
achieve, but the objective is not just to achieve at one time but also achieve consistently. So that
might, that is more linked to even the business development that we will do, it should go hand-
in-hand with the sales that we are doing, so that I think it will take a little longer, maybe about
another three years or so.
Moderator:
The next question is from the line of Biplab Debbarma from Antique Stock Broking.
Biplab Debbarma:
Sir, one question is on the cash flow. So can we expect this kind of steady cash flow going
forward? Is it the new normal in terms of cash flow, operating cash flow and how do you intend
to use this cash in or some kind of ballpark guidance? How do you intend to, are you going to
consistently reduced gross debt or we are going to use some part in business development and
all, so does give us some guidance on that, cash flows?
Page 12 of 14
Jagadish Nangineni:
Yes. Biplab. The cash flows - we have been focused on cash flow for the last couple of years.
Sobha Limited November 15, 2022
And that's the reason why you can see that there has been a steady reduction in the debt, which
is generating free cash flow. I think that's the way we would like to ideally operate going forward
as well.
Only thing is the values of it, which is it going to be in the similar range or it's going to be a little
higher or lower. That's a function of the other operations, which is how much do you spending
on the construction, how much is the pace of sales that will happen and our collection and so on
and so forth. But largely, we believe that the quality of sales that we are doing and the collections
we are able to do, that's it become much better in terms of process and in terms of the daily
operations. So our ability to manage the cash flow has become surely superior. And we would
hope to continue this performance in future too.
Coming to usage of this free cash flow, like we have been saying earlier, we will have to use it
to do new business development without which we cannot develop a pipeline in future and this
reduction of the debt has also come through not as high spending in terms of land. For the last
year / 1.5 years, we have not spent much on new lands. And that's one of the biggest reasons for
the reduction of the debt at this space. So if you do start building up the pipeline for new land, I
don't think it's going to be there at the same pace.
Biplab Debbarma:
And my second and final question is on your geographical footprint. So sir, are we being
opportunistic in terms of geography like you started in Kerala, one city to another city, Thrissur,
now only in Thiruvananthapuram, and in terms of instead of focusing on the key big markets,
like for example, you have a dominance in significant presence in Bangalore and also great
presence in Gurgaon now planning to enter in Hyderabad, so in the top or top six, seven cities,
that's where every developer wants to be in.
So my question is how you are approaching your increasing new footprint so that you achieve
your target of 7 million to 8 million square feet. Is it like opportunistic where we get, we go there
or we have some strategy in mind, like big cities or maybe in cities where there is lack of
competition? How we are going approaching this your geographical expansion?
Jagadish Nangineni:
Right. So Biplab, the good part for us is we have been present in all these cities, which is 11,
now we're going to add Hyderabad also 12 cities in real estate operations is that we have a good
understanding of the local markets. And we have been present in most of the cities for a long
time. So that gives us an edge in terms of understanding of local dynamics both in demand and
supply and our ability to get into a new market and establish a brand and deliver so that gives a
healthy, that can potentially give us a healthy mix of both the existing locations that we are
operating in.
And also some of the focused cities that that most of the large developers will naturally be
focused on, which is a large cities. NCR, MMR, Pune, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai and
Page 13 of 14
Sobha Limited November 15, 2022
maybe Ahmedabad. So these are the cities that even we would like to be focused on but there is
some, this diversification in terms of geography will help us even sometimes get the right set of
deals and that would help us take a little bit more conservative cause on land. Sometimes
aggressive land closures can potentially lead to probably lower returns, but that's something that
we would like to avoid if possible.
Moderator:
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, due to time constraint, we take that as the last question. I now
hand the conference over to the management for closing remarks.
Jagadish Nangineni:
Thank you, Adhidev, and thank you all for participating in the call, your questions and patient
hearing. I hope we have answered your questions satisfactorily. Our continued focus on
operational excellence, coupled with strong customer confidence in the brand are pillars of our
strength, helping us simultaneously achieve customer satisfaction and business metrics. We are
uniquely positioned through our vertically integrated operating model and geographical
diversification to capitalize on the opportunities in the residential real estate space high urban
growth economic environment.
Our disciplined growth mindset, investment in technology and people and process improvements
will accelerate growth across all our business segments. With an inventory pipeline of 23 million
square feet and our improved financial structure and high visibility of future cash flows we
definitely aim to deliver consistent long-term performance. And we believe that we are
structured to capture this kind of growth. With this, I would like to thank you for all your
participation. Wish you all a very happy week and best of best for the rest of the year. Truly
appreciate your support. Thank you.
Moderator:
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of ICICI Securities, that concludes this conference.
We thank you all for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.
Page 14 of 14