Unitech aims No 1 spot with affordable houses
Undeterred by body blow it received due to slowdown, Unitech announced plans to construct 20,000 affordable houses at a cost of Rs 1,700 crore to become India's numero-uno realty company within a year.
By PTI |
NEW DELHI: Undeterred by the body blow it received due to the slowdown, Unitech on Friday announced plans to construct 20,000 affordable houses at a cost of Rs 1,700 crore to become India's numero-uno realty company within a year.
"We made a mistake of only focusing on top two three per cent of India's population. Now we want to reach the masses... enter into budget and affordable houses... we will be the biggest player in the housing segment," Unitech Managing Director Sanjay Chandra said.
"We plan to construct 20,000 affordable housing units over the next two years... these will be low-cost homes with prices ranging between Rs 10-15 lakh," he said claiming that they would become the largest realty player within a year.
Currently, Unitech has a land bank of about 8,000 acres covering 500 million sq ft. Its rival DLF's land bank has come down to 425 million sq ft in the last quarter of 2008-09.
Both Unitech and DLF suffered the most due to the meltdown and had been forced to go for distress sale of the assets to keep their finances under check even though shares of the two plunged dramatically in the last six months.
DLF's share price had hit a 52-week low of Rs 124.15 in February 2009 from a high of Rs 614.90 in May 2008. Unitech's share price also plunged to a low of Rs 21.8 from a high of Rs 267.5 in the past one year.
"We are concentrating on churning products like a factory," Chandra added.
The company would start the low-cost housing from Chennai and then later taking to all the markets, where it already operates like Kolkata, Lucknow, NCR and Hyderabad.
Unitech possesses the land to develop these projects and construction cost would be met largely through advances from customers, he said.
Besides low-cost housing, the company would also develop 1,500 dwelling units every year on mid-income category.
The company would launch over 40 projects this fiscal, predominantly affordable housing with apartment sizes ranging from 500-1100 sq ft, he said.
In order to reduce its debt, Unitech last month raised Rs 1,621 crore through Qualified Institutional Placements. It is also selling various assets like hotels, school plots and office complexes.
"We made a mistake of only focusing on top two three per cent of India's population. Now we want to reach the masses... enter into budget and affordable houses... we will be the biggest player in the housing segment," Unitech Managing Director Sanjay Chandra said.
"We plan to construct 20,000 affordable housing units over the next two years... these will be low-cost homes with prices ranging between Rs 10-15 lakh," he said claiming that they would become the largest realty player within a year.
Currently, Unitech has a land bank of about 8,000 acres covering 500 million sq ft. Its rival DLF's land bank has come down to 425 million sq ft in the last quarter of 2008-09.
Both Unitech and DLF suffered the most due to the meltdown and had been forced to go for distress sale of the assets to keep their finances under check even though shares of the two plunged dramatically in the last six months.
DLF's share price had hit a 52-week low of Rs 124.15 in February 2009 from a high of Rs 614.90 in May 2008. Unitech's share price also plunged to a low of Rs 21.8 from a high of Rs 267.5 in the past one year.
"We are concentrating on churning products like a factory," Chandra added.
The company would start the low-cost housing from Chennai and then later taking to all the markets, where it already operates like Kolkata, Lucknow, NCR and Hyderabad.
Unitech possesses the land to develop these projects and construction cost would be met largely through advances from customers, he said.
Besides low-cost housing, the company would also develop 1,500 dwelling units every year on mid-income category.
The company would launch over 40 projects this fiscal, predominantly affordable housing with apartment sizes ranging from 500-1100 sq ft, he said.
In order to reduce its debt, Unitech last month raised Rs 1,621 crore through Qualified Institutional Placements. It is also selling various assets like hotels, school plots and office complexes.
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