Unitech Q4 net profit plunges 98%

Unitech Ltd, the country's third largest real estate developer by market value, has reported 97.79 per cent dip in consolidated net profit at Rs 2.26 crore for the quarter ended March 31, 2012 on lower sales. The company had posted a net profit of Rs 102.5 crore in the same period last year, Unitech said in a statement. Total income from operations also slipped to Rs 716.07 crore in the January-March quarter of the 2011-12 fiscal, from Rs 1,054.26 crore last year. For the entire fiscal, Unitech's net profit dropped to Rs 248.30 crore from Rs 567.66 crore in 2010-11. Total income from operations also declined to Rs 2,446.58 crore from Rs 3,186.87 crore in the previous year. Announcing the results, Unitech MD Ajay Chandra said, "Financial year 2011-12 was a very challenging year, particularly in terms of availability as well as cost of funding for real estate projects. This has resulted not only in an increase in financing costs for the company but also adversely affected the construction activity during the year." "There has been a gradual improvement in availability of funding in the recent months and the outlook on the interest rates is also benign. We expect the year 2012-13 to be significantly better," he said. The company achieved sales bookings of 7.19 million sq ft valued at Rs 3,808 crore in FY'12. source: http://www.realtyplusmag.com/rpnewsletter/fullstory.asp?news_id=20318&cat_id=1