Puravankara to invest Rs 3,000 cr in developing residential projects spanning over 14 mn sq ft in five years

Realty firm Puravankara will invest Rs 3,000 crore in developing residential projects spanning over 14 million sq ft in the next five years.
The Bengaluru-based company also plans to launch its affordable homes brand, Provident, in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) and Pune in the next few quarters.

The move comes at a time when the commercial business is slowing down due to Covid-related impact, with many companies talking about permanently or partially shifting to the work-from-home model.

“The focus is on the residential sales. The digitalisation initiative taken by the firm has led to good sales and we expect this to continue,” managing director Ashish Puravankara said. “We recorded a sales value of Rs 314 crore in the first quarter exclusively from ready-to-move and under construction projects.”

The firm currently has 0.47 mn sq ft of residential ready-to-move in inventory.

Puravankara had earlier planned to develop a 10 mn sq ft of commercial portfolio apart from expanding its warehousing business, but the pandemic hit the demand for commercial projects.

“We had all the approvals for the commercial projects but will not commence construction now. For the warehousing project, the board will take the call,” he said.

Currently, it has three commercial projects in Bengaluru — Purva Premier, Purva Mall and Purva Gainz — as well as Purva Primus in Chennai and Purva Summit in Hyderabad. These five projects total up to 1.3 million sq ft.

In June, Godrej Fund Management, the real estate-focused private equity arm of the Godrej Group, had bought a plot, with 1 million sq ft development potential, in Bengaluru urban from Puravankara in a deal valued around Rs 700 crore.

“The steps taken in the last one year have started translating into sales. We are accelerating construction and reducing high cost debt,” said Puravankara.

The company’s net debt reduced by Rs 451 crore in Q1 with operating inflows of Rs 817 crore.

“We are well capitalised to optimise buoyant sentiment. If the third wave (of the pandemic) hits and there is a shortfall, we will raise money,” he added.

The company has so far completed 74 projects measuring more than 42 million sq ft. Another 22 million sq ft of projects are under development. It has land asset of 64.95 million sq ft.