India Real Estate Monitor

Parsvnath Developers, the Delhi-based realtor, plans to invest up to Rs 500 crore for land acquisitions in fiscal 2009. However, it will not be aggressive in ramping up its land bank and would acquire land for its projects.
In its latest quarter, the BSE-listed Parsvnath added 66 acres of land.
Pradeep Jain, chairman at Parsvnath, said the focus is to acquire land for setting up integrated townships. “We are not very aggressive in acquiring new land to boost our land bank”.
“I think we would invest Rs 400-Rs 500 crore out of internal accruals, depending on liquidity to acquire land in this financial year,” Jain said in a conference call with analysts.
The realtor further added that land acquisition for its 8 special economic zone (SEZ) sites is complete. These are at Dehradun, Indore, Kochi, Gurgaon, Nanded, Hyderabad, Mysore and Jaipur.
“Construction for most of the SEZs will start in two months,” Jain said.
Parsvnath is setting up a 370-acre pharmaceutical SEZ in Nanded, Maharashtra. It is also in advanced talks to sell stake in its SEZ projects to fund its developmental plans.
The realtor is in talks with at least five private equity funds, including Saffron India Real Estate Fund.
The formal announcement for the stake dilution is expected in a month.
The developer plans to build nine five-star and 4 four-star hotels. It also expects to open hotels in Shirdi and Mohali within 9-12 months.
For its retail foray, Parsvnath plans to open 5-10 stores with formats including hypermarkets, convenience stores, food joints etc during the current fiscal. It is in talks with a major retailer for a joint venture, and the announcement is expected within a month. Per store costs would be around Rs 3,500-4,000 per square feet.
For its latest quarter, Parsvnath posted a 27% decline in net profit at Rs 73.97 crore from Rs 102 crore a year earlier. Sales fell to Rs 381 crore from Rs 414 crore.