Godrej further said: cash collection and is therefore operated Cash flow Over the next few years. This allows us to grow rapidly while maintaining gearing levels, but with no desire to reduce debt beyond this 0.5:1 range. ”
This time around, we're reporting impressive numbers on both a quarterly and full-year basis. Quarterly and annual sales, net income, and collections all reached record highs. The question is whether we can expect this momentum to continue and be sustained.
Pirojisha Godrej: The team, as you mentioned, did a great job finishing the fiscal year 24 in very strong shape across all operating parameters. We expect another very successful financial year. We have put a lot of effort into building our portfolio through very aggressive business development over the past few years when we felt land prices were subdued, but the economic downturn that we see across the market is very noticeable. We expected to see a turnaround in the cycle. Godrej Properties' portfolio of new launches is actually much stronger in his FY25 than it was in his FY24. We look forward to building on the strong business momentum we have seen over the last year.We have given very solid guidance for FY25 in terms of pre-sale bookings, targeting Rs 27,000 crore. Because 27,000 billion rupees is almost equivalent to $2.5-3 billion, what we want to understand is what is driving this sense of confidence.
Pirojisha Godrej: There are several things that can help boost your confidence. One, of course, in FY24 itself, we had a revenue of about 22,500 crore. So this is about 20% growth, which is the long-term target growth rate that we want to maintain. I believe that during this past year, our company has expanded sales very rapidly and achieved success.
If you look at our numbers last year, a lot of the growth came from the NCR market, where we grew 180% last year to over 10,000 billion in sales. Also, in the Mumbai market again he has grown and reached well over 100%. Revenue was around 650 billion yen, with slower growth in some of its other major markets such as Bangalore and Pune. This year, we look at the pipeline of projects and feel that all four major markets should be firing on full cylinders. So, not just the two markets that will contribute significantly to growth, but all four markets that we expect to perform well. Additionally, in the fourth quarter, he added two new projects in the Hyderabad market. This is another very large residential real estate market in the country and we look forward to having our first launch in Hyderabad later this financial year. So we think these additional geographic measures give us a lot of confidence again that we're going to see this type of growth. Finally, the market conditions we see continue to be very strong, and we are currently in the mid-stage of the economic cycle, so we are very optimistic that this year will be another good year. real estate demand First.Could you also tell us about your future prospects? commercial portfolio• When will all commercial projects be 100% leased?
Pirojisha Godrej: Typically, most commercial office leases occur within one to two years of project delivery. Usually we do a little bit of pre-leasing and then we do a lot of pre-leasing. leasing activities The project is ready and tenants can directly participate in the development. What's interesting for us this year from a commercial perspective is that most commercial buildings will receive their certificate of occupancy within the next few months. Therefore, these projects have been under construction for the past three to four years and are now nearing completion.
This year, we have completed two projects in Bangalore, one in Pune and one on Golf Coast Road in Gurgaon. So all of this will result in a significant increase in the ready inventory that we have on the commercial side and we expect a very strong year from a leasing perspective. Leasing activity declined significantly in FY22 and FY23 as concerns about the impact of the pandemic, working from home, and whether people were ready to return to offices remained. We have already seen a sharp improvement in FY24 when the rental activity was very strong and for example, the Godrej Two building here in Vikhroli is very close to 100% rental rate this year.
Let's also talk about any debt you have on your books. After increasing for 11 consecutive quarters, debt has finally begun to decline.Is it more comfortable now? debt level And will it go further down from here?
Pirojisha Godrej: We have publicly coached that on a long-term basis, we want to operate the business in gears between 0.5 and 1 to 1 to 1. Anything less than 0.5 to 1 will not allow you to properly utilize the growth type. Opportunities exist in the Indian real estate sector today, and if it's more than 1:1, it could be an indication that you're probably putting a little too much risk on your balance sheet.
So we feel comfortable operating anywhere within that range. As you know, 0.62 is near the lower end of that range. You have a lot of room to invest this year. I also think we can expect significant growth in cash collections from customers and operating cash flow. We've always tried to explain to the market our view that the first thing we need to do in this business is the capital that we raised just before the pandemic and during the pandemic four or five years ago. The next thing we have to do is business development, and we have had great success over the past three to four years in adding a strong set of new projects to our portfolio. Once you have these projects, of course you bring them to market through launch and you see an increase in bookings. As I mentioned earlier, we've seen increases of 55% and 84% over the past two years.
After this increase in booking value, the next step is to collect cash from the customer. Because at various construction milestones these projects start construction and the cash from the customers who booked, the cash they owe you, starts coming in. We expect cash collections, and therefore operating cash flows, to increase sharply over the next few years, which will help us continue to grow rapidly while maintaining gearing levels within this range, but beyond this. We need to be clear that there is no ambition to reduce debt. This band of his 0.5 to 1 is because we believe that it does not fully capture the opportunities that this sector offers us today.