DLF Profit Misses Estimates as Sales Decline, Financing Costs Increase
DLF Ltd. (DLFU), India’s biggest developer, reported third-quarter profit that missed analyst estimates on lower sales and a jump in financing costs.
Net income slid 45 percent to 2.58 billion rupees ($52 million) in the three months ended Dec. 31 from 4.66 billion rupees a year earlier, the company said in a statement yesterday. That compared with the 3.92 billion rupee median of 25 analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Sales fell 18 percent to 20.34 billion rupees, the New Delhi-based DLF said.
DLF was downgraded in December by Crisil Ltd., the Indian unit of Standard & Poor’s, after its liabilities excluding cash climbed to a record high of 242.7 billion rupees in the three months ended Sept. 30, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
The company is committed to its target of raising 60 billion rupees to 70 billion rupees from non-strategic asset divestment in the next three years to reduce debt, DLF said in response to the downgrade by Crisil. DLF and its joint venture partner Hubtown Ltd. completed the sale of a property in December in the western Indian city of Pune to a unit of Blackstone Group LP for 8.1 billion rupees.
The company spent 6.19 billion rupees on financing charges last quarter, 45 percent higher than in the same period in the previous year, according to yesterday’s statement.
It also said the Income Tax department has levied a demand for additional tax of 11.37 billion rupees, mostly as a disallowance of special economic zone profit. The company hasn’t made any provision for the payment as it is “confident that additional tax so demanded will not be sustained on completion of the appellate proceedings,” DLF said.
To contact the reporters on this story: Pooja Thakur in Singapore at pthakur@bloomberg.net; Siddharth Philip in Mumbai at sphilip3@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Andreea Papuc at apapuc1@bloomberg.net
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