‘B’ + for Indiabulls real estate by Fitch

Fitch Ratings have affirmed Indiabulls Real Estate’s Long-Term Foreign-Currency Issuer aDefault Rating (IDR) of ‘B+’ with stable outlook. The agency attributed this rating to the company’s debt reduction measures, diversified land bank and improvement in credit metrics.

Fitch is anticipating Indiabulls Real Estate’s net debt to reduce to around Rs 4,800 crore by end-FY16 from Rs 5,540 crore a year earlier. It also expects that the developer’s net leverage (net debt/ adjusted inventory) to improve gradually to around 55%, and contracted sales/gross debt to rise to around 0.8 times by FY17.

Sameer Gehlaut, founder & Controlling share holder of Indiabulls had infused equity of Rs 240 crore through a preferential share issue at the beginning of FY-16. Gehlaut also subscribed to Rs 80 crore of convertible warrants, which if converted will result in further equity infusion of Rs 230 crore in first half of FY-17.

Fitch foresees Indiabulls Real Estate’s cash collection to nearly double during 2015-16, which will be driven by payments from projects that are nearing completion. The company’s EBITDA margin also improved to 32% in first quarter of FY-16 from 23.5% last year.

Indiabulls has projects across the country, with considerable presence in the metropolitan areas of Mumbai, Delhi (NCR) and Chennai. IBREL has a significant land bank of about 7 million square metres, which is adequate to support project development over the next six to seven years. Moreover, the residential projects cover various categories be it middle-income or luxury. This diversity alleviates risks arising from volatility in a particular category or location, the Fitch release noted.

Home sales are down by 8 per cent

As per the latest reports of firm Liases Foras, the sales of Home are down by 8 per cent in top six cities of the country over the year-ago quarter, but India rose 2 per cent sequentially in the last quarter.

After the recent reports it’s clear that year-on year basis the sales of home are fell by 37 per cent in the NCR region while the sales of home was up by 8 per cent in the Mumbai. Whereas; Hyderabad was emerged as the best performing real estate market with more than 46 per cent year-on–year jump in the sales of home and it was followed by the Pune where sales was up by 22 per cent, in Bengaluru the home sales was increased by more than 5 per cent and in Chennai the home sales was up by 40 per cent.

In the report of quarter-on-quarter basis it is recorded that the sales in Chennai and Mumbai were up by 24 per cent and 25 per cent respectively and the sales was up by 31 per cent in Bengaluru whereas; the sales were down by 27 per cent in NCR region. The price of properties in Hyderabad, the Mumbai Metropolitan Area, NCR, Pune, Bengaluru and Chennai remained stable in the last two years on the year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter basis.

After analyzing the latest property trends it’s clear that unsold housing inventory level is so much up in the top six cities and it’s of about 853.09 million sq ft or about 650,000 apartments between the period of January to March quarter however; in the previous quarter it was about 832.09 million sq ft. Among all the real estate market, NCR had the highest unsold inventory with the 321.68 million sq ft area and it is expected it will take more than 71 months to sell these unsold inventories. However; Mumbai Metropolitan Region has the 192.27 million sq. ft as the inventory which will take about 46 months to be sold these spaces. And Bengaluru is among the best performing real estate market among the larger ones which have more than 152.43 million sq ft area and it is expected that it will take more than 27 months to sell them.

As per the reports of Liases Foras, the new supply in the current quarter rose about 21 per cent over the previous quarter which was about 36 per cent because the new supply came in the range of Rs 50 lakh to Rs 1 crore followed by 29 per cent in the range Rs 25 lakh to Rs 50 lakh. Reports stated that the units of two bedrooms constituted 36 per cent in the new supply which was followed by three bedroom units at 35 per cent. MMR and Bengaluru have 28 per cent and 31 per cent of the new supply respectively.