DLF targets up to Rs 3,500 crore in new sales booking in FY17

New Delhi: Realty major DLF is targeting new sales booking of Rs 3,000-3,500 crore in the current fiscal, similar to last year level, as housing demand continues to be low, a company's senior official said.

The country's largest real estate developer achieved net sales bookings of Rs 3,150 crore in the last financial year ended March 31, up by nearly 7 per cent from the previous 2014-15 fiscal.

"We are giving a sales bookings guidance of Rs 3,000-3,500 crore for this fiscal as well. Housing sales are still slow although enquiries have increased," DLF Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Ashok Tyagi told PTI.

The bulk of sales bookings during last fiscal were in DLF Phase-5 at Gurgaon at Rs 2,940 crore.

In the commercial business, Tyagi said the company expects to lease about 1-1.5 million sq ft in 2016-17 as against 1.02 million sq ft in the last financial year.

"We have almost exhausted our commercial space. So, we have started development of a new office building having about 2 million sq ft of leasable area," Tyagi said.

On the annual rental, DLF CFO said it should grow to about Rs 2,900 crore this fiscal from Rs 2,600 crore last fiscal.

The company completed 14.07 million sq ft in last fiscal as against 13.45 million sq ft in the previous year.

In its analyst presentation, DLF said that "Except for DLF5, Gurgaon, soft demand conditions continue in most micro markets where DLF has presence."

"Increased enquiries indicate that the markets appears to have bottomed out, hence the call is in timing of conversion of these enquiries into actual bookings," it added.

In the current conditions, DLF said its strategy would be to continue selling from the existing projects and focus on the execution of the projects thereby fulfilling customer commitments in legacy projects.

"Additionally in 'live' projects, the company continues to create finished un-launched stock to be sold when the demand scenario improves. As GDP picks up pace, higher income levels and the improved sentiment will improve the absorption levels," the presentation said.

Last week, DLF reported 23 per cent fall in consolidated net profit for the quarter ended March 31 to Rs 132.39 crore, as against Rs 171.62 crore in the year-ago period. Income from operations rose by 20 per cent to Rs 2,335.56 crore in the fourth quarter of last fiscal.

On an annual basis, net profit rose to Rs 549.39 crore in 2015-16 from Rs 540.24 crore in the previous fiscal. Income from operations rose by 21 per cent to Rs 9,259.86 crore for the year.