Lodha Developers Ltd shares rose as much as 8.3% to Rs 1,298.40 on Tuesday after the real estate developer reported a more than two-fold increase in first-quarter profit and outlined plans to generate about Rs 9,000 crore by monetising land at its Palava data centre park.
The company reported a net profit of Rs 1,373 crore for the quarter ended June, while revenue from operations increased 43% year-on-year to Rs 4,996.7 crore.
The quarter also saw pre-sales rise 4% year-on-year to Rs 4,629 crore despite the absence of fresh residential launches. Net debt fell by Rs 446 crore from the previous quarter to Rs 4,931 crore.
Alongside its quarterly results, Lodha Developers detailed plans to unlock value from its Green Data Center Park at Palava, which investors viewed as another growth driver.
Managing Director Abhishek Lodha said the company has already monetised about 130 acres of land at the park and plans to monetise another 150 acres over the next three to four years. The company expects those transactions to generate about Rs 9,000 crore in sales, which will help fund the construction of about 1 gigawatt of powered-shell data centre capacity.
"We expect to monetize a further 150 acres over the next three to four years at an average of about INR600 million per acre, generating approximately INR90 billion of further sales just from Phase 1 of our land," Lodha said during the earnings call.
He added that the planned data centre development is expected to generate more than Rs 2,000 crore in annual rental income by FY32.
The company said the data centre expansion would be largely funded through land sales within the same park and would not increase group leverage or compete with its residential development business for capital.
"Our data center build is largely self-funded from land sales inside the same park. It does not add to group leverage and it does not compete with our DevCo for capital in any significant manner," Lodha said.
Lodha Developers has maintained its guidance of Rs 24,000 crore in residential pre-sales for FY27, compared with Rs 20,530 crore in the previous financial year. During the earnings call, management said residential launches have resumed in the second quarter and reiterated its expectation of delivering the full-year target.
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