Aditya Birla Real Estate Limited (500040) Earnings Call Transcript

Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to Aditya Birla Real Estate Limited Q3 FY '25 Earnings Conference Call hosted by Nomura. [Operator Instructions] Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Akash Gupta from Equity Research Nomura.

Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. On behalf of Nomura, I welcome you all to the 3Q FY '25 Earnings Call for Aditya Birla Real Estate. We have with us from the management, Mr. R.K. Dalmia, Managing Director, Aditya Birla Real Estate; K.T. Jithendran, MD and CEO; and Mr. Snehal Shah, CFO. Sir, we will start with the call with opening remarks from the management, which will be followed by a Q&A. Over to you, sir.

Okay. Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. And welcome to the earnings conference call for the third quarter and 9 months of financial year 2025. Let me now take you all through the financial highlights, followed by the business-wise operational highlights. For the third quarter of financial year 2025, the consolidated turnover of continuing operations declined by 4% year-on-year to INR 946 crores, EBITDA for the quarter was reported at INR 18 crores. This EBITDA margin reported at 1.9%, while the net loss for the quarter was INR 37 crores. For 9 months of financial year 2025, the consolidated turnover of continuing operations grew by 18% year-on-year to INR 3,206 crores. EBITDA for this period was INR 241 crores with EBITDA margin reported at 7.5%. The net profit of continued operations for this period was INR 3 crores. Now let me take you through some of the key highlights across our business verticals, starting with the real estate business. During the quarter, the Indian real estate sector recorded a strong sales, consistently growing appetite for new launches. The premium and agri residential housing segment continued to outperform, driven by factors such as a large space requirement, advanced amenities and the desire to secure and well-designed living spaces. Premiumization continue to remain the defining feature in the residential segment. Q3 '25, the real estate business performed very well with booking value increasing by 257%. Year-on-year to INR 675 crores at our already launched projects and collection increased by 175% year-on-year to INR 501 crores. The revenue of Birla Estate grew by 117% year-on-year to INR 184 crores, driven by continued deliveries at project Birla Alokya in Bengaluru, Birla Vanya, Kalyan and Birla Vanya Navya Phase 1 in Gurugram. Adhering to our commitment of diversifying the portfolio while catering to demand for spacious homes, we acquired a 70 acres land parcel in Boisar for our first ever plotted development project. In other updates, Birla Aurora has been awarded the prestigious Net Zero Energy-Existing Building certification by the Indian Green Building Council. Also Birla Anayu, Walkeshwar has received LEED Gold precertification, reaffirming our commitment to energy efficiency and global sustainability. Let me also take this opportunity to provide some clarity regarding on Honorable Supreme Court order on land bearing C.S. 1546 that appeared in media publication of Times of India. The Worli West land comprises of freehold and leased land. The lease land, which is under Supreme Court order measuring to 25,544 square meters or equivalent to 6.31 acres under the development potential of approximately 95 lakhs square feet to INR 5,000 crores booking potential. This has no impact on Birla Niyaara project, as land parcel are different. Additionally, there would not be an impact on our long-term plan of the company, through this order as a company had planned to develop this post 3 to 4 years. It is important to note that Birla Estate added a total of INR 63,000 crores GDV till date and we have strong business pipelines across our key markets of MMR, NCR, Pune, Bengaluru. We plan to stay on course with our long-term growth plan. Lastly, our outlook on the sector continued to remain optimistic, driven by increasing urbanization trend, rising disposable income and government investment in infrastructure. With the ongoing reduction in unsold inventory, India's real estate sector is strategically positioned and resilient and dynamic future effectively addressing overhang concern. Now moving to the Pulp and Paper segment. Q3 '25, paper, board and tissue prices continued to witness a downturn due to weak domestic demand. Rising finished goods inventory, and rising input cost pressure from increasing wood and imported pulp cost. Average net sales realization for the quarter were down by 6% year-on-year and 3% vis-a-vis previous quarter. While production volume fell by around 15% year-on-year, sales volume decreased by 16% year-on-year. That resulted in EBITDA declining by 79% year-on-year. Writing and printing paper segment witnessed a soft market demand in Q3 financial year '25. The board segment faced challenging market conditions in Q3 with price correction by domestic mills for machine coverage. The company continued to implement various cost reduction initiative to counter these market conditions, like trial of using bagasse pulp in middle layer of board without compromising on quality. Bamboo usage in fiberline was increased from 14% in Q1 to 31% in Q3 to reduce cost of captive pulp. Additional capacity of chippers was utilized to store wood chips instead of wood logs thereby reducing downtime in pulp mills. On the sustainability front, the company developed 138 nurseries in 13 districts to increase wood catchment area with about 110 lakh plantation completed till Q3 '25. The company generated around 44 metric tonne of compressed methane gas, CMG from wastewater and utilized the same instead of LPG in tissue machine. Company is also taking various strategic measures like conducting a management leadership workshop, Mission Everest with a leading faculty. We also reworked the copier market strategy to revamp the product portfolio. Additionally, B2C strategic initiatives are also under development stage. On the market outlook, prices have received in writing and printing paper segment at the end of Q3. On the market outlook prices have recovered in writing and printing paper segment at the end of Q3 and Q4, realizations are expected to be higher, while the operating environment in the tissue segment is expected to be challenging in Q4, given the disruption from entry of new players and adverse demand-supply balance in the domestic market. In both segments, both volume and pricing outlook in Q4 remains subdued given market condition and competitive intensity from low-cost imports with rising domestic competition, we are making efforts to develop export market to obtain orders with a positive contribution margin and ensure machine coverage. Export in paper segment are expected to increase from Q4. With that, I will now conclude our opening remarks, and we can start the question-and-answer session. Thank you.

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from the line of Akash Gupta from Nomura.

So sir, we did not have any launches in the third quarter in the festive season. And now you are saying that we'll have roughly 6 launches in the fourth quarter. So I just wanted to understand like where are we with respect to RERA time lines for these 6 projects? And how confident are we that all these 6 projects will go through? My second question is with respect to the loss in your real estate segment this quarter on the P&L. I just wanted to understand, could you give us a brief background as to why do we have a loss in the third quarter for the resi segment?

Yes. So our launch calendar for this quarter, largely based on our RERA clearances, is we are expecting the Birla Trimaya and Birla in Sangamwadi, which is in Pune, we are expecting these 2 launches in February. Also, we are expecting to launch Sector 31 in Gurgaon, Barmalt project in February, and we're expecting 2 launches in March. One is in Sarjapur, Bangalore and the other one is the new phase of Navya in Gurugram. So together, we expect to launch about INR 8,000 crores of new projects worth of inventory. So with that, it's our confidence that we'll be able to achieve our guidance.

So Akash, on the lost part of real estate, basically, the reason is, of course, our corporate overheads are going up. and we were expected to realize some EBITDA from the handover of our completed properties in Kalyan, particularly. So that has not happened in this quarter, so we could not recognize that revenue as well as the profits from that, which will probably happen in this quarter.

So Akash, I just want to assure you all our margins for these projects are all protected. We are running a margin of at least 25% to 32% in all the projects which we are handing over. And overall, it's close to about 30% to 35% margin. But just because the revenue number has not come in while our overheads is evenly distributed across this thing. We have this -- blemishes there.

And sir, one more question for FY '26. What is our presales guidance? How are you looking at that?

So we'll refrain from giving any guidance at this point of time. Let's see about the quarter 4.

So Akash, essentially, as K.T. mentioned, that we have a couple of -- few launches in this quarter, we have to see what is the performance of those launches. And based on that, we have to consider the sustain and sales of the balance, including our existing launched properties. And based on that, we will work on the number and probably end of quarter 4, we'll be able to give you a better guidance.

Next question comes from the line of Dixit Doshi with Whitestone Financial Advisors Private Limited.

So my questions are related to this recent Supreme Court order. So some of the things you have already covered in the opening speech, but a few doubts regarding that. So firstly, is it only the litigation is only in the West part? Or is there any litigation on the east part of the land as well? Secondly, this west part is a 10-acre, so entire 10-acre is under litigation and only the judgment has come for 6-acre and -- or only 6-acre was under litigation and 4 acres is absolutely clear? The next part is whether we will be -- we will have to develop any units for the BMC? And if yes, then how much it will cost us? I have a few more if you want, I can cover entire things.

So just to give a little more clarification on this litigation aspect, which is already covered by Mr. Dalmiaji in the opening statement. So the litigation is clearly on restricted to that 10 acres of land on the Worli -- sorry, the litigation is restricted only to the Worli West land, not to the East land. East land is totally clear, and has nothing to do with it. On the West land, which is approximately 10 acres, 3.5 acres was freehold, there is no problem, it's absolutely clear. If you remember a few years back, we had said that we have won in the high court, et cetera, on this 6.5 acre land, which is a long lease land from BMC. So that is where the order got reversed in the Supreme Court. So the thing remains that only the 6.5 acres is where we have suffered a loss in this litigation. Otherwise, the rest remains intact. Also it's pertinent to mention that there is a lot of obligation in terms of building the workers' colony there, et cetera. So if the land goes, obviously, the responsibility and the liability of redevelopment, et cetera, also moves to the owner of the land.

So in case this land goes, so we will not have to build anything?

Right. You're absolutely right.

And is there any -- I mean, is there any space where we can appeal against this order or it's full and final done?

These legal options we are exploring at this point of time.

And just regarding this, if we surrender this land, I mean whether we will be getting any additional FSI, TDR or anything? And is there any option where we can give them this line somewhere else and keep this land?

Yes. This 6 acres, you clearly understand Worli East is 30 acres now because we also acquired the Vanya land. So that is completely a separate story. There are no issues on that. This is a 10-acre property on which -- of which partly 4 acres roughly is our own leasehold land. So there is no litigation or any encumbrances or anything on that land. So that is free for us to develop. And we maintain that we will develop that. The issue is only on the 6 acres land, 6 acres land belongs to BMC. So BMC has leased it to us. And we wanted to take procession of that, which the Supreme Court has said now you can't get it. So therefore, now everything related to that is BMC. So we don't have to surrender because it is not -- it is not our land that we have to surrender. It is their land now at the moment. I hope I'm clear about that. So anything they have to do on that land is their liability. We have absolutely no liability on that land.

And my second question is regarding the Niyaara project. So how much units are unsold in the first tower in the second tower?

Yes. We've sold how much -- one second. Yes, so in the first tower, about 400 units are sold out of 414. Second tower, about 86 units are sold out of 148.

And any thoughts on Tower 3?

Yes, that we are planning to bring it in this coming year.

FY '26?

Yes.

Next question comes from the line of Sidhant Chhabra with Minerva Asset Advisors.

Just had a couple of questions on the Paper and Pulp segment. Firstly, if possible, can you give me a split of bold procurement between subabul, casuarina and eucalyptus, the 3 types of wood?

I don't have that breakup at the moment. So we can -- off-line, you can drop an e-mail, I'll send it to you.

Okay. So -- and when I dropped the e-mail off-line, could you also tell me how it's changed over the last year. That's also possible?

Okay. I try to send you this trend or whatever. You want to know Eucalyptus and popular, right, the breakup?

No. So subabul, casuarina and eucalyptus, what your -- the split is of wood procurement between these 3.

Okay. Fine.

Okay. So my second question now is regarding wood prices. If you can give me an idea that how do you see domestic and imported wood prices moving over the current year -- calendar year '25 over the rest of the year?

I think the cost pressures will continue. The wood prices have gone up by close to around 6.5% from last year. and imported pulp has gone up close to almost 17-odd percent up. So that pressure will continue, particularly imported pulp because of the dollar -- the rupee depreciation also would impact the pricing of that. So that is one thing. And there is the demand supply part, probably it will also continue because there are new capacities that have come up in the market and all that. So that -- those cost pressures will certainly continue in the near future. There is a possibility that slowly as the demand picks up, we can pass on some of it in the pricing.

So are you saying that the domestic wood price, there you expect them stay stable or increase or...

Mostly, they would expect -- we expect them to be at least sustained. But it won't -- we don't expect it to considerably go down.

So domestic wood prices, you don't expect a decline over the rest of this year, say, by December end of the year.

Correct.

Okay, right. And on imported wood, you told me imported pulp, what about imported wood?

We don't import wood.

Then my last question would be on Shandon Chenming, the Chinese paper company. they had a significant part of their capacity shut down in this last December quarter. So first thing would be, have you heard any update on that, if it's come back or to any extent? And secondly, because of that, have you seen that the competitive intensity in paperboard has come down due to their capacities being shut off in the last quarter because they're quite a large player in the paperboard segment?

So I absolutely don't have any update on that part. But you have to understand that we were facing pressures, both from imports as well as from new capacities coming up in the market. So imports probably are slowing down, that is what we are seeing, but the pressure is still up because of the new capacities in the domestic market.

Okay. So you're saying that in paperboard, import pressure has been slowing down?

Yes.

Okay. And do you expect that to remain the trend going forward? Or do you expect the competitiveness to increase again?

So well, I think it would probably always be there. And now with particularly rupee depreciating also would probably slow it down a bit in my opinion. So the pressure may be there, but it won't be as intense it was in this financial year.

Okay. So again, like the decline has happened and you expect it to be slow -- the pressure from imported paperboard to be slow as well, not a pickup again?

Yes.

Right. So okay, I'll reach out to you regarding the split between the 3 types of wood procurement.

[Operator Instructions] Next question comes from the line of Harsh Pathak with Emkay Global.

So K.T., with regards to your remarks that in fourth quarter, we'll be launching INR 8,000 crores of new inventory. But to meet our original guidance to INR 7,000 crores to INR 8,000 crores of presales for the year, I think the ask rate is close to around INR 5,000 crores to INR 5,500 crores. So how confident are we that we'll be able to achieve this high sales from whatever we are launching in the last quarter?

Harsh. So apart from the launches, there are also sustain sales -- so with a combination of both that we are pretty reasonably confident that we will be able to achieve this promised target.

Sure. So that INR 7,000 crores to INR 8,000 crores remains intact -- guidance.

Yes, yes, with the help of new launches and sustenance support.

Sure. But in the sustenance launch, I was looking at the Q3 performance. So I think the third quarter was mainly driven by Niyaara sales. I think 55% came from Birla Niyaara Phase 1, Phase 2 combined. But now again, Walkeshwar, we have not seen any sales during the quarter. So first is, how is the traction in the lux and premium segment and the sustenance inventory is also low. So my question was more around that.

Yes. So I'm not expecting huge listing because we don't have much of sustenance except whatever is leftover inventory from Silas and Walkeshwar, which is Birla Anayu. But I can be confident in saying that we are getting a lot of traction in both these projects, a lot of interest is being shown, people are coming and going. But as we know in this luxury sales, once the launch is done, it takes its own time for deals to be concluded. And usually, most times you have noticed that Q4 is a high action period for these very high-end values -- high-end value units, luxury sales are now about INR 10 crores is -- usually seen pretty strong traction in that final quarter.

Right. But are we seeing footfalls, good footfall still at our projects at the luxury side?

Yes, yes, yes. Pretty strong.

Sure. And my next question was regarding this Boisar land parcel. So what kind of development are we eyeing there? And when do we expect the launch of this particular project?

Yes. So it should be a pretty quick launch. It's a plotted development that we are planning there. So we are -- and it's very well located, very close to the -- there's a bullet train station, which is coming up from Ahmedabad, Mumbai. The location is very strategic. We've got a very good deal. So it's largely a plotted development. So I expect this to be launched in the next financial year.

So in the first half, we can expect this launch?

Yes, I don't like to guide so sharply. But I can, at this point of time, confidently say that should be in the next financial year.

And what would be the GDV of this particular project?

Roughly about INR 500 crores being a plotted development.

The entire project. And this is completed our share, right? I think it's an outright purchase so.

Right.

And regarding the BD pipeline, I think in this year, we have already done a very good business development. So how does the pipeline look for the future acquisitions?

Yes. So we have already done about INR 23,000 crores. So pipeline looks pretty robust, still very strong deals, both JDA and outright, we are pursuing at this point of time.

Next question comes from the line of Pritesh Sheth with Axis Capital.

Just one question or actually a couple of them. One, first is on Sarjapur, since it's a big project. we would get approvals for the whole project, and we would launch 1 or 2 phase out of it? Or what's the plan there?

Yes, considering the market demand and the land structure, et cetera, we are actually planning for a single phase launch.

Okay. So whole of projects will get launched at one go. Okay. That's good to hear. And secondly, on the debt part, INR 4,000 crores, which is like close to 1:1 in terms of equity. How are we looking ahead in terms of managing the leverage. Is there some comfortable ratio that we have in mind? And from the trajectory perspective, is this going to go down from here on? And if yes, then how are you planning to bring this leverage down? I know, I mean, we have a good pipeline, expecting a good cash flow from it, but it will take probably a couple of years for us to scale up to that cash flows, but in between how are we going to manage it and keeping the growth also in mind.

Ladies and gentlemen, the management line has been disconnected. The management line has been reconnected.

Yes. So I'll just repeat my question. If you ...

I got our question. In the interest of time, you don't need to repeat it. So yes, the comfortable level for us will be somewhere around 1.1 of the equity. And I know we are very close to it. But then the thing you have to understand is we have these launches. So a lot of cash is expected to come roughly to -- even if you take 20% of what we are going to launch, that would be about INR 1,000-odd crores, at least that will come. That will help in reducing the net debt to us. The cash may not be available, but it will reduce the net debt. Therefore, we can access additional borrowings against that. Plus, if you look at the launches that we have already done and the amount of bookings that we've done and you net off the balance expenditure and the balance cash that we have to receive from our launch project, we are much more comfortable, roughly around INR 5,000 crores of cash is in the bank right now to be received in the next 2, 3 years based on that. Is it clear or you want some more clarification?

I was on mute, sorry, Just -- I got that answer. Just one more follow-up there. In terms of land investments, we have some target in terms of how much we are going to invest to acquire projects, considering we have already built a reasonable pipeline. So what's the target there for next year?

So as said, we have exceeded our this year's target by more than 25%. So -- but we -- as we mentioned in the past also, we keep looking for good value-adding projects at good locations, which will further enhance our brand and we'll be able to do justice to the business. So whenever we get such opportunities, we are at this point of time chasing up quite a few with no particular time lines. So whatever we get, it's a good deal within our parameters within our broad guidelines, we will be happy to acquire it.

Next question comes from the line of Saksham with AMBIT Capital.

My first question is related to the presentation. For the MMR region, on Slide 17 for the MMR region, saleable area is increased by 0.5 million square feet, compared to the previous presentation. While the GPV decreased approximately by INR 5,000 crores. So can you please explain the disconnect over here?

Yes. So we had just kind of kept the one -- the litigation part, whatever, that we kept it aside.

But if you would observe that your saleable area has increased by 0.5 million square feet. So it is now 10.6%. It was earlier at 10.1%.

The MMR. I will just check that and come back to you.

Sure. And my next question is related to the Noida update. So we haven't got any update on Noida currently. Any potential time line or the GDV potential of that project, if you could highlight that as well?

Yes. So Noida is still work in progress. There are -- as I mentioned last time, there are a few conditions precedent, which still is being handled by the land JV partner, the landowner. So unless that is complied with, we are in no position to declare or talk about it.

So no time lines on that as of now?

Yes, difficult to guess, wager a guess there. We'll be able to tell you once we do it.

Sure. And my last question is related to the Worli land. So what about the potential launches for FY '26, as you mentioned that you would be launching for Niyaara for Phase 3. What about the Wadia family land that we have bought and the Century Bhavan, if you could highlight that as well?

Yes. It's too early to kind of give a guidance at this point of time. We are right now focusing on our launches for current quarter. Once we kind of make progress on this, we will be, maybe in a better position to assess the situation. For sure, we are pretty confident of launching Tower C, this is the third tower. As far as the -- the rest of the parcel is concerned, that we are in the process of market assessment, et cetera. So difficult to wager a guess now.

Next question comes from the line of Sidhant Chhabra with Minerva Asset Advisors.

I just wanted a reclarification on the paperboard part I asked because in the IP, it says that the Q4 outlook, both volume and pricing remain subdued in the board segment due to competitive intensity from low-cost imports. But when I asked the question earlier, we had discussed that pressures from import is slowing down. So I just wanted a clarification, am I misunderstanding something?

We are not saying that the pressure is off. We are only -- I have just mentioned that the intensity might kind of reduce because you've seen some -- particularly, we've seen some good -- I wouldn't say good on the rupee-dollar side. So that makes imports bit competitive. That's all I'm trying to say.

Okay. That's all you -- and you had mentioned about domestic capacity also coming on within board. So could you...

It's come -- in board, it's come in tissue also.

Okay. Can you -- is it possible to disclose some names of the players where it's come up?

I think in our presentation on the tissue, we have already discussed. And in terms of board, you -- they are all big players like ITC, JK, et cetera.

Next question comes from the line of [ Chetan Shivami ] with Accenture.

I had a question that, what kind of revenue split do you think between Pulp and Paper and real estate segment going forward? I understand that you are cautious about the performance of the upcoming launches in Q4, but still I would like to know like what kind of split do you think going forward because we are seeing consistent decline in Pulp and Paper segment, because of economic headwinds also, but we have also seen aggressive increase in the real estate segment in terms of revenue. So how do you expect the split? Yes, that's my first question.