Earnings of realtors improve on rise in sales

Leading property developers in the country have posted strong earnings results on the back of improvement in sales and the consequent rise in bottomlines. Developers like Godrej Properties said the improvement in sales numbers is mainly on the back of new projects which launched in recent months. Pirojsha Godrej, Managing Director and Chief Executive of Godrej Properties informed that the firm received good response for its launches despite flat sentiment in the overall real estate market. The company launched four projects across key markets of Mumbai, NCR and Bangalore. Remarkably, the profits of both Unitech and DLF expanded after almost nine straight quarters. The two largest listed players said they were ramping up construction activity in the coming quarters. DLF said it had reduced its debt by Rs 1,870 crore by selling its non-core assets. Unitech’s consolidated net debt stood at Rs 5,421 crore as on December 31, 2012, with the net debt to equity ratio at 0.45, which the company said was one of the lowest in the industry. Some firms including Unitech witnessed a fall in the finance costs in the October-December quarter to Rs 8.4 crore from Rs 27 crore in the same year-ago period.