Ashiana Housing (NSE:ASHIANA) Q1 2027 Earnings Call

0:00 Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to Ashiana Housing Limited Q1 FY 'twenty seven Earnings Call. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during this conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star, then 0 on your touch tone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Ms. Kunjal Agarwal from Adyen Capital Markets. Thank you, and over to you, ma'am. Hello, good evening to everyone. On behalf of Aryan Capital Markets Limited, I thank you all for joining into q one FY twenty seven earnings conference call of Ashiana Housing Limited. Today from the management, we have Mr. Varun Gupta, the Hold Time Director and Mr. Visag Dugar, the CFO of the company. So without any further delay, I would hand over the call to the management for their opening remarks. Over to you, sir.

1:02 Thank you. Good evening, everyone, and a warm welcome to all of you for joining our earnings conference call for the first quarter of financial year twenty twenty seven. The real estate sector entered FY 2027 on a more moderated note after the strong momentum witnessed through FY 2026. Residential demand across key markets softened somewhat during the quarter, weighed down by global economic uncertainty and a cautious rate and watch approach among some buyers. At the same time, developers continue to remain confident in the medium to long term outlook with new project launches holding firm and prices remaining resilient across most markets. Premiumization continued to be demanding growth with VARs increasingly gravitating towards larger well designed homes from established and financially disciplined developers, reinforcing the ongoing shift towards organized and branded players.

1:58 The senior living segment continued to remain relatively insulated from these broader demand fluctuations supported by structural demographic led growth drivers, changing family structures, rising urbanization and a growing preference for community based living among senior citizens continue to strengthen the long term case for this segment. With organized supply still limited related to the size of India's aging population, the opportunity for established players in this space remains significant and largely unaffected by short term cyclicality in the broader housing market. I will now take you through our operating highlights for the quarter, followed by our financial performance. Starting with our operational performance for the quarter, the company recorded a booking value of INR $3.58 crores during the quarter gone by the 3.6 lakh square feet of area sold across to 34 units.

2:55 While bookings moderated compared to the exceptionally strong preceding quarter, our collections remained healthy at INR409 crore, registering a 6% year on year growth, reflecting sustained customer confidence and strong collection efficiency. Average utilization also improved significantly to INR9923 per square foot, representing a 37% year on year increase driven by a favorable product mix and continued pricing resilience across our portfolio. During the quarter, we made a significant investment towards our future growth pipeline through acquisition of 28.55 acres of land at Wadgaon, Maval in Pune. This is the largest ever land acquisition undertaken by the company for a senior living project.

3:44 With an estimated saleable area of approximately 20 lakh square feet and a potential sales value of around INR 1,300 crores. On the execution front, we commenced handover for Phase one of Ashiana Nitara in Jaipur during the quarter, marking another important milestone in our product delivery. Overall, we continue to make meaningful progress across the key pillars of our long term growth strategy by maintaining a diversified geographical presence, expanding our senior living portfolio, strengthening our development pipeline and progressing steady on project execution. Coming to the financial performance, revenue from operations for the quarter stood at INR107 crore compared to INR293 crore in Q1 FY twenty twenty six.

4:30 Revenue recognition in Q1 FY 'twenty seven was primarily driven by handovers at Ashiana, Nithara in Jaipur. Higher revenue in FY 'twenty six was attributable to more deliveries. PAT for Q1 FY 'twenty seven was lower vis a vis Q4 of FY 'twenty six due to lower deliveries. Importantly, our operating cash generation remained healthy during the quarter at INR121 crores compared to INR108 crores in same quarter last year. This reflects the strength of our collections, disciplined execution and efficient working capital management despite lower reported revenues. We also commenced the redemption of NCDs issued to ICICI Prudential, mutual fund during the quarter, 31.25 crore representing 25% of the original issue was redeemed.

5:23 Overall, while the reported revenue for the quarter was by timing of project handovers, the company continued to demonstrate healthy operating cash flow generation, maintained a disciplined approach towards capital allocation and strengthened its development pipeline, particularly in the senior living segment. With this, I would like to open the floor for Q and A session. Thank you. Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on the touch tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and 2. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles.

6:14 The first question is from the line of Rohan Joshi, an individual investor. Please go ahead. Hi, sir. Am I audible? Yeah. You are audible, Rohan. Please go on. So thank you for giving me the opportunity. So my question was on the line that the quarter one bookings are just back ended year versus the full year target. So I just wanted to know that which specific launches are expected to drive the bookings in. And, like, what gives the confidence in hitting the f one... F I twenty seven guidance that you have given in the previous call calls given this soft start? Yeah. I'm there. Why don't you take it up, though?

7:01 So you're right that the quarter one has been relatively softer, but we have got launches lined up. And there are a couple of launches lined up in Q4 that we have in the present year. Good, sir. My No, sir, just I will just I mean, sorry. In July, we took out an operational update. So in July, we had a great launch of a project called Ashiana Uma. So as of July 31, our full year sales had reached to about 859 odd crores, if I were to say. So if you look at the July month was better than actually all the entire first quarter.

7:47 So I would say in the first half itself, September 30, we should somewhere be between thousand 50 and 1,100 crores of sale. So run rate will be maintained from thereon. And in the in the second half of the year, the big launch that is lined up is Ashiana, phase three in Gurgaon. That will be critical in taking us through to the guidance. So... And that that will be, yeah, in either q three or q four of this year. Okay. Got it. Got it, sir. And then my second question was regarding the presales growth, sir, that we will have. So presales grew very well last year as as we have seen. So what is the sustainable presales trajectory from here onwards, sir, for the next three to five years?

8:38 So on that front, I... We are not as looking for sustained presales growth in the near term. I think what we are planning is how do we what do we do in the long term things. So we might have actually a little bit of dip in presales this year or the next, and then, let's say, let's get back to a certain number in '28, '29, or 2930. A a little bit of that is being driven by a little... A lack of inventory to sell coming up in Gurgaon, in Jaipur, in Diwali, some of our key markets in the regular housing space. This is primarily happening because the company is more and more capital towards the senior living space where we see a much longer, deeper opportunity.

9:25 So I think, like, in the senior living space, we are looking for about 25% CAGR to be maintained over the long term. Though at a low base, if we had started about 100 five years ago and presales over 570 last year in in senior living. And they are looking to really, really actually expand that even at a faster CAGR than that. So so for a couple of years, you may not have very large presales growth or that, but we are comfortable with that because we are seeing margin expansion and ROEs now. As we had guided earlier, we are looking to get to at least 15% ROE. And we can see 15% ROE sustaining going forward and with the in... Increasing capital base because we don't intend to dividend out most, you know, significant amounts of capital.

10:22 Dividends will remain the way we are growing a little bit. So I think the company's focus would be on maintaining that ROE trajectory doesn't fall below 15 and sustains above 15 year on year every year. If if it's a little bit of fluctuation here or there in in the presales or top line and stuff like that. So that there is compounding of the of the network happens over a over a long period of time. I think that's the intent. So I just thought I'll put that out there. That said, I think senior living, as I articulated, we see... We we expect to see strong momentum in senior living sales going forward. Sure. Sure. So that was answered. Thank you so much. Thank you.

11:07 Thank you. You. Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, The next question is from the line of Rohit from MyThought PMS. Please go ahead. Yeah. Hi. Good afternoon. I'm sorry. I just joined when you were answering the the question, Varun. So I'm sorry if I missed it. So when you were giving the update on the July month, that was for pre sales. Is that correct? Yes. Yes, sir. Then just following on from there. So this year, you are confident of holding on to that 2,500 crore kind of presales for FY '27. Is that correct? Because I think you said there could be a difference in near term. So... And and Yeah. And you I I think 2200 is what we Sorry. 2200. I'm sorry. Yeah. 2200. 2200. Yeah.

12:14 Twenty two twenty two hundred, we are confident of holding it this year. Okay. Okay. At this moment of time, it looks good. We should exit h one at about 1100 as I indicated, between thousand fifteen, 1100, given that we hit 860 by July. So eight fifty. Right. So Right. Right. Right. Okay. That's that's good to hear. And, sorry, just one, two small things. So one was on this Bangalore CP that we were looking at. Anything we... Anything further on that? We haven't heard any updates, so just wanted to check. So there has been progress, Rohit, on the CPs being resolved in Bangalore. I'm hoping that we should have the final definitive documentation signed off sooner than later.

13:08 So there has been progress there, and we have actually put a team deployed to people there on team who are gearing up to make things ready to get the project launch going. So I'm quite confident that Bangalore... South Bangalore should happen soon. Okay. This is in South Bangalore. Okay. Okay. Got it. I I just wanted to check where where you are in Bangalore. I I was just This is in... This is on Kanakpura Road. Right. Right. Right. I I I I I figured. I think I just remembered the listing that you had posted when you had acquired this... When you were given this notification. So sorry. One more question, Martin, was, so, I mean, if we were to look at the presentation where you give quarterly delivery, of course, it can change here and there a bit.

13:56 But it seems that if... I mean, you said 15% ROE. I think we were 15% ROE last year also or just about there. Yeah. Yeah. So I think based on what you are saying and what, I mean, given the margins can significantly increase from here, given the projects that we have for delivery, they must have very good margins going forward because of the realization growth and in general operating leverage. So, I mean, is it not fair that we will probably cost 20% ROE this year on a reported basis? Yes. That is fair. So when I say 15%, the goal of the company is to make 15% ROE, the floor ROE in a long term basis. Yeah. So Okay. That's fine. Have and have and have year higher than that. So the first was to get to 15, but the objective... Strategic objective is to make that the floor.

14:55 Sure. So I think that is a very figure out how do think is a good point. Sure. No. That's a very well taken point given the fact that it's a very cyclical industry. If we are able to do it, then I think it will be a phenomenal achievement. Varun, just I mean, I understand, and I think we have spoken on this in the past few con calls that you are not so much driven by the Hello? Yes. Yes, sir., sir? Yeah. Hello? Yes, sir. Please go ahead, Rohit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So sorry. I was saying that if... I mean, I understand your point that you're not so much fixated by the presales growth, at least in the near term.

15:42 Yeah. But even if you were to sort of, let's say, one, two years, we are not going to grow because we don't have that much in mind. He's he's not right to concern concern, sir. We'll see. There is one more connection here. Yeah. I'm not sure if it yeah. Sorry. Hello? Okay. Of course, can someone from check if there's any other connection on the line, please? Okay. Sorry. Rohit, go ahead. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I was just saying that while this... While I'm... While I understand your point on not going for presales immediately and you may not have the inventory.

16:28 But how do we sort of in the quest of trying to balance that 15% ROE aspiration and also grow because ultimately that is what all of us also want as a company. So yes, how do we balance that? I'm not saying that we should I mean, of course, we don't have land. We should probably get land in the next one, two years and subsequently launch. But just to understand from your perspective, let's say three, four years out, how do we sort of ready ourselves for the to sort of grow from this 2200, 2300 pre sales that we will sort of be at given the inventory position? How do we sort of go from that level to the next level whenever that happens? Let's say three, four years. Okay. So any thoughts on that? Yeah. So, Rohit, two things. If our capital base is not reducing, if you're not divviding out our capital or doing buybacks, which we don't intend to do, and we...

17:27 In in... Are looking to increase our capital base, there is no way ROEs can sustain without earnings growth. Right? That's your mathematics. For for ROE to sustain, we will have to have a earning... Long term earnings growth. Yes. So from a long term perspective, we do want to get to, let's say, in the medium term, maybe $34,000 crores of presales we'll need to hit. All I'm... I was saying was momentarily for for some quarters of challenge we could go through if that sustained momentum will take to get there. And I think the strategy of the company is, okay. Let's invest more and more in senior living because we see that as a structural business. So the change is...

18:14 And second, less cyclical because it's a structural change because of the change in the demographics. And it's less cyclical because it's less competitive with less less supply on the table as of zone. And we have a sort of a significant advantage of being a pioneer there and having our sort of brand placed and everything. So the long term earnings growth and also pre sales growth is going to be driven by how senior living does. And right now, it's a small base, but as as we increase the senior living piece in the pie, and when that increases, when it becomes a larger part of the business, it will just keep driving the growth of the business is where we are coming from.

18:59 So let's say, a 2930 financial year target is actually to look at 1,500 crores of presales from senior living itself. And once that has kicked in, I think senior living... And then presales growth will happen. So we are looking at couple, you know, couple of quarters of maybe not as much top line growth in the... And through those quarters, I think, though, we will continue to have earnings reported. Earnings are doing well. We'll continue to have reported ROE is doing well. We will continue to generate positive cash and deploy into senior living. So we have already deployed into four... Five projects for right now 51 lakh square foot odd, which we have in the future pipe, the Bangalore one coming up. We are in active discussions for a few more.

19:51 I think maybe get to a first place would be to get to about a 10,000 crores of GDV and senior living. Once we have that, I think then then we can see just senior living driving the momentum of the company going forward. I think that's the basic key. So... And I think we will need to get $2.03, 4,000 crores of GDV of presales, probably closer to 4,000 in the medium term to be able to sustain those ROEs. And instead of just saying that instead of a straight line path that there is, there's a... Maybe a little bit of a dip for a couple of years, and we can live with that and pick that up again. I think that's the basic thing, just. Fair enough. Fair enough. All the very best. Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Thank you. The next question is from the line of Chetan Thakkar from M3 Investment Private Limited. Please go ahead.

20:48 Good afternoon, sir. Sir, just a question on the ROE. I think earlier you were highlighting a 20% plus ROE. And today, you've commented that long run, it remains 15%. So what has changed between those two assumptions? Chetan, maybe I'm wrong, but whatever I remember, we have been talking about getting to 15% for the longest time, and we hit 15% last year in reported earnings. I I would... Maybe I'll go back and check the transcripts if I've said otherwise. But that said, as was on the current call... Well, previous question, I think this year, we will hit 20% ROE, and we should hit 20% ROEs for a few more years given the plan that we have in place. I think that is something that we can do.

21:44 But when I say 50% ROE has been the long term goal, like, that's the that's the rate... Minimum rate. That's the that's the minimum rate that can happen as a sort of compound that going forward. That's when they get at 15. So, sir, structurally, how should we look at the ROEs when we build it up from a project to the ROE perspective? So how does the project margin change for you more longer and not just for a year or two? But how does the project margin change for you which gets you to 15? I think if we are able to achieve about a 30% gross margin Hello, sir? Your voice is not audible.

22:37 Hello, Varun, sir? Hi. No, sir. It's muffled, sir. Okay. I think, Ashi, why don't you take this up? This is better. This is better. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. This is better. If you want to continue or else I can I'll I'll just continue. So as I... We generally target about a 30% gross profit margin at the project level, about 18% PVT margin, about a 12% SG and A and 18% PVT margin, and 13 and a half back. If you are able to sustain that whenever, whichever year, I think overall, generally, our ROEs should translate into the teens. And if we are able to improve the margin profile further from here, then that takes us about 20. That's the general sort of view for me. And levers to improve the margin, would would it be more pricing power given the brand and given how we are placed in the senior citizen market? That would be one key lever, or are there any other levers as well there?

23:39 So so one, sorry, for pricing power is definitely the key lever and senior living, used to that, enjoy pricing power in senior living. And what we are also intending to do in senior living is increase our product profile into a little bit more higher end segment. So if you see Mhmm. Our pricing has been increasing on a ticket size basis. Also, we are going up to more premiumized products as... Because we had mentioned in his opening premiumization remains the same. So as we more premiumize our products and enter higher sort of category of products, there also margin should improve.

24:24 Got it. And if I may just add to that, Varunji, I think the other factor is the operating leverage fully playing out in the long run. Because if you are talking about the senior living, which is relatively more resilient towards the cyclical fluctuations, if that attains a critical mass, something like INR 1,500 crores of recent that you talked about, the kind of operating leverage which will flow through will also give a sustained kind of impact on the margins in the long run and hence the ROEs as well. Understood, sir. Thank you, sir. That's helpful. All the best. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Ankit Shah from White Equity Investment Advisors. Please go ahead.

25:11 Thank you for taking my question. Sir, apart from Bangalore, any other business development near closure, particularly in Jaipur, Gurgaon, if you can share something? Sorry to interrupt. Sir, your voice is not audible. Hello, sir. We are not able to hear you. Hello? Yes, sir. Please continue. The line has gone disconnected. He's there. He's there. Just give him a moment. Just just a moment. Okay. Sure. The business development front, we have active conversations going on in in Jamshikpur, something in Chennai, something in Bombay Puna, in Ansua.

26:12 I think we should get something done in a small thing in Jamshikpur, hopefully sooner than later. Outside of that, in Bangalore, things are in advanced stages of discussion, but they're still in discussions. I don't think we'll have any announcements in the coming quarter, but hopefully in the third quarter of this year, we should announce those transactions as well. Okay. That's it from my side. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Aditiab Energy, an individual investor. Please go ahead. Yeah. Hi. Thank you for the opportunity. So my... So I have few questions on the side of the revenue quality. So my first question is, like, what's the underlying run rate for bookings?

26:59 Is Q1 FY twenty seven INR three fifty eight crores closer to steady state? Or is the big launch due later in FY twenty seven to normalize the number? So, Aditi, one thing, so numbers in the deliveries are not driven by launches. When you're talking about quarters, that's depending on handing over and that's driven on OC. For this year, I think we give a delivery schedule and a revenue schedule that's in slide. Are about free sales you when you said INR 50 crores for the quarter? Or are you talking about revenue revenue in the financial statement? Or I think we talked revenue in the financial You're talking about the financial statement. You're talking about the reported revenue. Correct?

27:53 Yes. Yes. Sorry. So yes. So reported revenues in Slide 15 of the deck. We have given an indication of how much we expect to report this year. And this year is expected around about 2,000 crores of revenue is expected this year. So definitely, Q1, as that number was not at all normal. I would also say quarterly revenues for a real estate company and quarterly profits are not so valuable because our revenues keep fluctuating depending on delivery. So two projects, Ashiana and both Phase three and Ashiana one of Phase one, totaled over $5.32 crores of revenue. We got those OC occupancy certificates in the middle of July.

28:50 So they're coming in July, August, September, we gave that update. If that occupancy certificate had come in on, let's say, June 5, we would have been able to recognize that entire revenue in June itself. But since it came in on July 15, everything is or at the middle of July, not '15, in the middle of July, everything is coming in the second quarter. Now that kind of fluctuation, I don't have any ability to control in our business, and that will remain. So I my so even Q1 was reflective, and I would say Q2 may not be reflective as well. We should look at revenues and reported profits on a year on year basis. Therefore, in our slide decks, we have given a sense of what kind of annual revenue should we expect.

29:38 And what we're trying to do is make sure those get met out in the year that things don't slip from one year to the other. And I think that's the endeavor that the company has. Okay. Okay. Got it. Got it. So my... Another question is that the... According to my understanding that the unit sold fell from four zero seven to two thirty four year over year, even as the ticket sizes rose. Is this deliberate or a genuine volume slowdown? Again, difficult to say it's not deliberate. But also, we are as I indicated earlier, we have some lesser inventory in some markets.

30:25 So that had an impact. So the launch happened in July. So I clarified earlier by July 31, our overall sales presales for the year was $8.59 crores. So... And we have guided for about INR 2,200 crores this year, and I think we are on track to meet that guidance as of now. As I said, each month, we should update probably INR $10,501,100 crores of presales. So things are going alright. Okay. Okay. Sir, and on the portfolio mix side, the ongoing portfolio mix has shifted to elite and medium homes at 36% versus senior living at just 23%. So, like, given Ashiana's brand is built on senior living leadership, is this a deliberate strategic pivot toward higher ticket premium homes? No.

31:17 Actually, if you look at our company, we... Even though we were known for senior living, senior living was probably 10% of our business five years ago. Okay? Let's say, FY 'twenty two or 'twenty three would have been 10% of our business, which has become '23. If you look at deliberate pivot, would again on the deck, I would urge you to go to Slide 19, which is our land available for future development. And if you see the entire 5,000,000 square foot is senior living. Bangalore, which I just spoke about on the call, which will get added to this land available for future development hopefully soon, is also senior living.

32:03 So a large part of the pivot is happening towards senior living. Even in Slide 12 of future projects, which is phases of existing developments, 40, 45%. About 40, 45% of that is also senior living. So this mix will change decisively in favor of senior living in the next two to three years. Okay. Okay. Sir, and I I have this last question that the kid centric homes is concentrated almost entirely in Gurugram. So how are you thinking about the geographic concentration risk? There, like... And versus diversifying to other cities.

32:50 So we have done kid centric homes in Jaipur as well and the... As well. Then we have done Gurgaon. Kids centric homes as a concept, we are still sort of fine tuning the recipe, if that's the way to put it, where we are learning how to differentiate the concept better as we go along. Like, the senior living concept, we have differentiated, we have understood the model, we are in the zone of scaling it up. Senior living, our first two really, really differentiated kid centric homes projects are in Gurgaon. One in Amarra, we have just delivered Phase one, Arohaum we have just launched. I think it will take us a few more years, I would say, two, three more years to sort of figure out kid centric homes better.

33:41 And once we have figured it out better, I think we'll take the part of really scaling that up and and taking it to more and more cities as we go forward. Okay. Okay, sir. Thank you so much. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star and one on your touch tone telephone. The next question is from the line of an individual investor. Please go ahead. Hello. Am I audible? Yes. Okay. Hi, mister. Yes. Yeah. So I wanted to ask about the Vardaga Punya acquisition.

34:33 Can you walk us through the payback assumptions on the 1,800 crore project? What type of and adoption phase are you underwriting currently? I couldn't understand you fully,. The sound is a little muffled. Can you repeat that, please, for us? Hello? Am I audible now? Yes. You are. Yeah. So Sorry to interrupt, Kushi. Your voice is not audible. Can you Hello? Yeah. Kushi, I will say what I understood. Please say yes or no if I understood the question correctly. You said the new work out partner that we have taken up, you were asking what are our assumptions to be able to do 1,800 crores of revenue and what kind of absorption annual absorption do we expect in that project.

35:32 Is my understanding correct? Yes, yes, right. Right, sir. Okay. So it's a INR 20 lakh square foot project. So we are estimating about INR 9,000 to 10,000 of revenue per square foot on saleable area. So that translates into about INR 1,800 to 2,000 crores. So that is our estimated at underwriting. And yes, and we expect to sell about two lakh square foot a year, so that takes about a ten year development time frame. So it's a little longer development time frame, but we hope to enjoy good margins here. So that should take care of overall returns from that perspective. And if things go better than expected, then I would say we could do probably three lakh square foot a year and wrap up the project in about seven hundred years.

36:25 Okay. Got it. And another thing, why is the NCD funding for this land parcel specifically? While internal cash accrual was given at $7.85 crore net cash positioning at FY '26. So the NCD financing was actually done by the landlords. The landlords wanted to have a partial revenue share position in the project. They didn't want to sell it fully. So they... But I... But they were keeping a very minority stake overall. So therefore, in our view, we wanted to take the title of the full land. We didn't want to do a part JDA.

37:11 So we said we'll do a full acquisition and we'll issue you debentures to basically mimic that. So they basically, they wanted to keep a 25 equity. So they've contributed 25% of the purchase value back to the debentures. And we have agreed on a 6% revenue share for the remaining, so they're getting 6% revenue share, which actually to structure the transaction in Q2. Okay. And what is the expected launch time for this? About eighteen months. So about... Yeah. So let's say this H two of next financial year is what we expect to launch this. Okay, sir. Thank you.

37:59 Thank you, Krishna. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Himanshu from. Please go ahead. Small query. How... See, on the five, six projects, what we are trying to acquire, what type of CapEx we are expecting? And in FY '27 or, let's say, FY 2728 on the projects which are very near to completion. To completion means or near to acquisition. Okay. We... Those deals go through. Yeah. So we have a total budget of deploying about INR800 crores in this financial year, including the about INR 180 crores that were deployed in the last quarter.

38:52 So we are looking to deploy INR 800 crores for the year total. And this includes all the deals we are talking right now? Or there can be something which Yes. Yes. It includes the deal we have done in the last quarter and all the deals that we are in active conversations with and serious conversations with. And once more thing, in some of the projects, historically, IFC also used to come. Okay? Or we had an agreement with IFC. Is there those agreements with IFC only for residential means? Can they also be partner in senior living, or they will be always on the other side? And do agreements still continues or it is over? So our partner in senior living, they're actually a partner in Ashiana, there they have provided capital there as well.

39:46 The first platform, we had fully exhausted. In the second platform, we were only able to deploy INR 100 odd crores into ROM. But the platform timeline has been over. We have not been able to deploy the rest. Just because of some by the time we timed some of the projects and what their criteria for investment in these other cities outside of Gurgaon were, we were not able to meet on the ticket sizes. So they have an upper cap of ticket size that they can finance over a unit. And now we had some relaxations in place. But like in Chennai, Aranya or in Kathmandh, we were not... Which were there where we could have deployed, we were not able to meet the ticket size requirements.

40:35 So unfortunately, because of that, we were not able to go through. Okay. Now there are no more, let's say, funds or agreements with them. There is no active agreement with them. We are discussing with them how we can work together in the future. It's a partnership I think both of us have enjoyed. We are open to We enjoy IMC's the kind of capital that IFC brings to the table, I think it works really well for an organization like us. And I think they have also enjoyed good returns on the project that we have been able to do. So we are actively discussing if we can do further capital The next question is from the line of Nikhil, an individual investor.

41:31 Yeah. Thank you. So just two questions. First, that you said that you're trying to make the business less cyclical. So just wanted to have a broad understanding that what could be the low and high of presales year on year. Just a broad understanding, if you could. And second is, in case of multiple projects, how does operating leverage work? Got a sense that if it's a big project, then it will work, but you are across so many geographies. How would operating leverage work? That's all. Nikhil, two things. One, I don't know what the high and the low of a cycle would be.

42:20 I I think at some point in time, couple of years back, we were looking at this number, And the idea was to look at the higher top and higher bottom, what we typically call in case of a capital market cycle as well. But then that was a while ago, we looked at a number of something like 10 lakh square foot. That is a minimum that we need to kind of breakeven. But then after that, our product portfolio has changed. The component of senior living has been increasing. So I think we need to take a fresh look as to what is the kind of number that we look at the minimum number in any kind of schedule and the maximum number we can go to. Nikhil, the intent has become that how do we get to a place where we can make 15% ROEs of floor in the organization.

43:08 I think at first, it was an aspiration to get there. We got there on an economic basis two, three years ago, on a reported basis last year. I think what we are looking to do is create a floor in the business of 15% return on equity. So and therefore, we are trying to get more structural products in the portfolio where we think senior living has got structural tailwinds behind it as India's demographics change and I would say also the first real private sector, children's of liberalization start retiring, economic liberalization of '91.

43:57 And I think that's what we are playing at. I would be very hard to give a bottom or a top. And in terms of operating leverage, I think operating leverage plays out in two ways. One is the company level. I think, Vikashi, when he was talking about operating leverage, he was talking about at the company level, there are a lot of fixed costs at the company level. The second way it also plays out is at the location level. If you see for any developer, they have a lot of location strength and location brand. So for us also as we do more products in a location, our marketing costs fall. So let's say, Chennai, it used to be around 8% in Ashiana Subram and we are now down to about 4% to 5% of sales and marketing costs. So as we get more steadier in our location, those things also come down. And then larger projects also help where approvals are one time, designing is one time.

44:58 As the phases get delivered later, we should increase... Capture some value that we have created in the product through increasing prices. So there are three sort of levers... Different levers playing out at different points of time. That's that's that's what's happening. Yeah. K. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. You. Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question, please press star and one on your touch tone telephone. The next question is from the line of an individual investor. Please go ahead. Hello? I am not sure, but they are not Phase I be relatively lower margin because Amara is a product. Project has very good margins, but their Phase III onwards margins are substantially better than Amara.

46:23 Would be hard to comment a net margin, I don't know how to define a project level net margin. But gross profit margin blended between Anbul and Amaras should be in the mid-20s. That is pre sales, selling cost and general administrative. We should be in the mid-20s. I don't think we are in the 30 level also that we expect to get blended across both those projects. We should be in the mid-20s. Sorry, on whole three, what we can tell you is the margin gradually phase what phases improve Q1 came up like Q2 for Q3 for a pricing better, but still phase one four or phase five In what way?

48:14 Overall, we still got stock fee as a proportion of Phase one should be not more than 20%, I would say, as compared to where 80%, 90% of Gourdong sales by other developers is to be traded later. So pressure needed that. Okay. Thanks, sir. Thank you. Yes, sir. Thank you. And gentlemen, that was the last question. I would now like to hand the conference over to the management for closing comments. Thank you all for participating in this earnings conference call. We remain focused on family handovers in FY 2027 and on building long term value through disciplined execution and customer centering development.

49:04 If you have any further questions or would like to know more about the company, please feel free to reach out to us directly or you can alternatively reach out to our Investor Relations Manager at Valorum Advisors. The investor presentation and relevant materials are available on our website, and we will be happy to provide any further clarifications you may need. Wishing you all good health and a productive year ahead. Thank you. Thank you. On behalf of, Aryan Capital Market, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.