(Reuters) -Indian homebuilder Sobha reported a first-quarter profit on Friday that more than doubled, helped by higher prices and sustained demand for premium apartments.
The Bengaluru-based real estate company, which logged record sales in the June-quarter, said its consolidated net profit rose to 136.2 million Indian rupees ($1.58 million) from 60.56 million rupees year. Revenues rose 33% to 8.52 billion rupees.
KEY CONTEXT
In recent years, Indian real estate developers have capitalized on a post-pandemic shift in buyer preferences towards larger, amenity-rich apartments by securing land deals and swiftly launching new projects.
But with the frenzy cooling in some parts of the country, homebuilders have pivoted from chasing higher sales towards timing their launches as per shifts in demand, analysts have said.
National elections delayed approvals for project launches last year across the real estate industry – which hampered timelines for Sobha as well until recently.
With approvals-related bottlenecks easing, analysts at HSBC expect the current fiscal year to mark a “turnaround” for the company
PEER COMPARISON
Valuation (next 12 Estimates (next 12 Analysts’ sentiment
months) months)
RIC PE EV/EBITDA Revenue Profit Mean No. of Stock to Div
growth (%) growth (%) rating* analyst price yield
s target** (%)
Sobha 36.75 26.36 20.12 143.34 Buy 15 0.92 0.18
Prestige Estates 50.21 19.81 47.35 93.46 Buy 18 0.99 0.10
Projects
Brigade Enterprises 27.77 14.94 23.00 28.30 Strong 9 0.79 0.18
Buy
* The mean of analyst ratings standardised to a scale of Strong Buy, Buy, Hold, Sell, and Strong Sell
** The ratio of the stock’s last close to analysts’ mean price target; a ratio above 1 means the stock is trading above the PT
APRIL-JUNE STOCK PERFORMANCE
— All data from LSEG
— $1 = 86.4490 Indian rupees
(Reporting by Hritam Mukherjee in Bengaluru)
