Mumbai: Macrotech Developers, formerly named Lodha Developers, has filed a draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) with market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) for an initial share sale and raise around Rs 2,500 crore via an IPO, reports said.
Lodha's attempt to raise money through the initial public offering (IPO) comes as the real estate sector has witnessed some signs of recovery after a long spell of slowdown.
“The e-filing of the DRHP has been done. The Lodha IPO is majorly a primary issue of shares and the proceeds are likely to be used for debt reduction, land acquisition and new projects,” Moneycontrol quoted a source as saying.
Lodha Developers is one of India’s largest real estate players and has been planning to launch an IPO for years. It first attempted to launch an IPO in 2009 to raise around Rs 2,800 crore but deferred the plan in the aftermath of the 2008 global crisis. Later in 2018, three years after the split between brothers Abhishek Lodha and Abhinandan, the company made another attempt but withdrew it after a liquidity crisis hit the real estate sector. The company had planned to raise Rs 5,000 crore in 2018.
Lodha has witnessed increased demand over the last quarter, seeing over Rs 2,500 crore in booking in the quarter ended 31 December. While luxury and premium homes saw a booking of around Rs 1,000 crore, the mid-income and affordable business fetched Rs 1,500 crore of bookings during the period, a Mint report said.
Earlier in November last year, Moody's Investors Service affirmed Lodha's Caa1 corporate family rating (CFR) and Caa1 senior secured rating and changed the outlook to stable from negative.
Lodha Developers, founded in 1995, had 38 projects in India with a developable area of 23 million square feet and 19 planned projects with a developable area of 54 million square feet as of March 2020. It has operations in Mumbai, Pune and London. The 2015 reorganisation of Lodha Group led to Abhishek's control of the real estate business while Abhinandan was given the charge of financial services business (Roselabs Finance).
