Thank you so much. Ladies and gentlemen we will begin with the question and answer session. Our first question comes from the line of Puneet from HSBC . Please go ahead.

Thank you so much and congratulations on great performance on the retail piece. Can you talk a bit about what i s happening in Mall of Asia, consumption level numbers off the charts, but rents still lagging and it looks like it is much low. You a re still at 88% occupancy. How should one think about the potential for growth on the rentals for this part of the portfolio?

Hi Puneet, thank you so much for your question and yes, I think Mall of Asia's performance has been phenomenal. We launched the mall in October 2023 and from there to today it has nearly reached the levels that we see in Phoenix Palladium. We have seen several first -time global brands that have opened their stores at Phoenix Mall of Asia within our portfolio itself. And I will hand the call over to Rashmi now to share some key highlights on the type of brand mix that we have seen and the upcom ing new retailers that are expected to open up in Phoenix Mall of Asia going forward.

So, Mall of Asia has been seeing a great trajectory. It has built up as a destination center really fast. I think all factors have contributed to the exponential success of the center that we are seeing. Bengaluru as a city has been thriving. It is a great location. When we acquired that land parcel, we knew that this is the location where we have to build the Mall of Asia. The architecture and interior that we ha ve done for the center, I mean the response that we received from the city, from the retailers who visit across the globe, they rate it as one of the best centers that they are seeing in recent times that has been built up. But above all, I think it is always the tenant mix. I think the tenant mix that we ha ve achieved at that center is extraordinary. And we keep adding to that extraordinary tena nt mix. In the recent times, we have opened the flagship store of Apple, Rolex, Onitsuka, several other BTL (Bridge-to-Luxury) brands that have opened over the last six months. And not only that, we will continue to see a lot of marquee brand openings over the next three to four months as well. And so this center continues to be on a great growth trajectory going forward. And we have seen a very positive rental growth trend at the center along with consumption. And we wil l see a lot more of it in the coming quarters as well.

So, in fact, Puneet just putting some numbers for the benefit of everyone on the call. Consumption at Mall of Asia reached Rs. 732 crores for the third quarter. And it is up 112% year-on-year. While rental also has grown by 58%. And quarterly rental for this asset reached Rs. 62 crores. In fact, occupancy right now is at 88%. And typically, you would see for the rest of our portfolio, all new malls are at 95% or thereabout in those trading levels. And even in the Phoenix Mall of Asia, in the coming next two quarters, we are going to see occupancy stabilize at the 94 %-95% level going forward. So, we are hopeful that the consumption performance should continue going forward as well.

So, if I look at consumption, it is just about 7% lower than Phoenix Palladium. But rental income is almost half. Do you think it can trend towards the same as Phoenix Palladium or do you think structurally it will remain lower there?

I think structurally, Puneet, you have to look at consumption and rent trajectory converging over a three-to-five-year period. So, there are times when we start off with a particular rental contract, the fixed rent kicks in immediately. Whereas brands' consumption takes time to scale up. In Phoenix Mall of Asia, the rents of course started very strongly in the first year. We were nearly at Rs. 160 crore s of annual rental last year. And this year also, we are seeing rents growing strongly. Now, consumption for many of these brands is scaling up sharply. And we will see rents also align with this rising consumption growth in the coming quarters.

Secondly, Rashmi, on the broad portfolio, you have clearly outperformed the rest of the market on the retail side. All the retailer numbers were quite poor and you guys have done extremely well. If you can talk a bit more about it, how much of it has to do with footfall versus value growth?

So, that is a good question. So, firstly, a lot of our retail partners tell us that their performance in our portfolio is an outlier. Even though at a broad category level for them, the numbers may look very different. And if you look at the flagship stores across all the listed retailers we have, all of them have shown remarkable double -digit growth. So, that was talking about the listed retailers. Secondly, we are seeing that growth has been spread across all categories. So, whether we talk about the fashion category, gold jewel lery category, you talk about electronics. Also, I think the other parameter which has added to exponential growth this quarter, one is the festive season, of course. You see a sharp growth in numbers in Q3, which has the Diwali and Christmas festivities. You see this every year in our portfolio and generally in the market. What has further added to the growth is t he strong repositioning that we have been doing in our center s, whereby we have churned out a lot of low -performing categories. For example, some of the malls where we had hypermarkets which were very large, 30,000 - 60,000 square feet. And the trend has changed towards shopping at such large hypermarkets. And churning them and converting them into high -trading department stores, or converting part of that area into high-trading in-line flagship stores. That has impacted the overall trading as well. And further, we ha ve had a lot of new marquee brands opening across our portfolio this quarter. And some of those individual brands have also done remarkably well adding to the growth further.

And this is across the portfolio, right?

Across the portfolio. Because if you see our repositioning efforts, we are halfway through the asset upgrades at Phoenix Market City Mumbai, and Phoenix Market City Pune, and some of the other centers as well. We opened the Gourmet Village here, which is an F&B destination at Phoenix Palladium. And this is a very successful concept. While now we are taking this concept to other centers, but in some small ways, we have started making F&B changes across all our malls and marquee F&B brands coming in. So, we are seeing an impact of that F&B change also across all our malls. In terms of marketing strategies and marketing plans, we have really been evolving. We have an excellent marketing team, a nd there are a lot of things we ha ve been experimenting with on our marketing side. And we see a huge impact on the consumption side on account of the marketing initiatives we have taken. We are constantly focused on increasing the consumption of our brands, and all activities and activations we do are in that direction. And so, you know, the inputs and our strategies are resulting in those outcomes.

Understood. That is very helpful. And secondly, Varun, if you can talk about where are we in terms of launching Kolkata Residential, and what is the plan for Thane now?

So, Puneet, on Thane, we have planned a retail-led mixed-use development. We acquired this land parcel back towards the end of 2023, in November 2023. And from then to now, we have planned, I would call it a fabulous mixed-use district here with a destination retail mall with an area of approximately 1.3 to 1.5 million square feet in terms of leasable area. Office Tower - a Grade A office tower for the growing district of Thane and the huge commercial demand that we are seeing emerging there. And, you know, luxury event centric hotel.

Offices right now, Puneet, they are between 0.5 million square feet to 1 million square feet. The overall FSI potentia l for Thane is in excess of 4 million square feet. So, we are optimizing what we can add and what we can maximize in terms of the FSI consumption here in Thane without compromising on the experience that each user will experience when they come to this mixed-use platform.

Okay.

If I just add on Thane, Puneet, we are right now in the final stages of obtaining, securing our approvals. We are awaiting the environmental clearance and we at the m oment have commenced demolition activities of the old existing structures on the Thane site. And in the next two or three months, we also expect to commence excavation and the subsequent construction activities. Tenders are already out for excavation and we are also, you know, very soon going to be launching the tenders for the ci vil contract for constructing the entire development at one go.

And Kolkata, when should you expect the launch?

Kolkata residential, I think we are in the final stages of approvals as well as design fine-tuning. I think in the coming two quarters we will come back and update you on the launch timeline of Kolkata.

Okay. That is very helpful. Thank you so much and all the best.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Pritesh from Axis Capital. Please go ahead.

Yes. Just thank you for the opportunity. So, just carrying forward the previous conversation on lagging consumption and revenue that we are seeing in most of the assets. And in fact, if I look at the rent to consumption ratio, it i s 11% this quarte r, which was, I think, this is the lowest since we have seen in 2014. So, if you ca n explain to me what i s happening here, you talked about, you know, eventually it converges. But does everything get converged? Because I understand, jewellery brands, everyone might not be at MG plus variable. So, you can correct me if I am wrong. So, just some insights and thoughts on that.

Sure, Pritesh. Varun this side. Let me take this question. One, Pritesh, I think the consumption growth during the quarter was very strong. And like Rashmi mentioned in her comments, all categories contributed to the strong consumption growth, including fashion, where we combine a number of categories and it accounts for 50% of our consumption area. We, in fact, saw strong 16% growth in consumption (in fashion). And if I especially exclude the high trading density categories like gold jewellery and electronics, the underlying growth is in very high double digits. And this is, in fact, the strongest growth that we have seen per se in the portfolio over the last five years. Rents per se at times are a lagging factor. We see rent growth happening when we enter into new contracts and the retailers start paying the fixed rent from day one while their consumption scales up. Over the last two years, we have had very strong growth. And as we had i ndicated also earlier during this year, rent growth has sequentially improved as we have opened up new stores and brands have crossed the revenue threshold and started contributing to revenue share. I think in between from quarter -to-quarter and especially quarter 3 if you see, quarter 3 is a quarter w ith more emphasis on high trading density categories such as gold jewellery, etc. And consumption versus rent in quarter 3 per se historically has also seen a bit of a divergence. But when you annualize it, consumption and rental growth is actually very near to each other over a three-year period.

Sure. Got it. Fair enough. And second on this trading occupancy ramp -up at MarketCity Pune and Bangalore, by when do you think we should be back at 95% considering these are already well leased out? So, a quarter or from here, couple of quarters, you know, some timelines if you want to attach to that.

Absolutely, Pritesh. I think we are on track to cross 90% trading occupancy in both Bangalore and Pune by March 2026 in line with our original timelines. And we have a lineup of some great first-time brands that are entering the city such as IKEA, Uniqlo, etc that are opening their first stores in the city of Pune and Bangalore will also have a similar trajectory. I think you should expect to see the 95% level by the middle of FY27. In fact, 10% of overall area is already under fit-out at this point in time . So, in a staggered way, we will see the launches happening in the next three to six months.

Sure. That i s helpful. I have couple of more, but I wi ll jump back in queue and take it later. Thank you. All the best.

Thank you so much. Our next questi on comes from the line of Murtuza Arsiwalla from Kotek Securities. Please go ahead.

Hi, Varun. Just to delve deeper into this lead lag between the consumption growth and the rental growth. Can we attribute it to the mix that kind of changes plus the fact that you could have some malls in a ramp-up phase and therefore the minimum guarantee so we do not see a good correlation between consumption growth and rental growth And just to understand that better, let us say you have a certain amount of consumption growth on a quarterly basis. Is it that a strong consumption growth on a mature mall would reflect in better rentals in a subsequent quarter? Like, is there a one-quarter reset or it is a straightforward percentage of consumption so it is almost instant set of repricing? So, that is the first question I just want to understand because it has obviously been coming up a couple of times in terms of consumption growth ahead of rental growth and vice versa. So, I just want to understand that and then I have another one on the commercial piece.

Right. So, I think, thank you, Murtuza, for that. And I will just take a step back to also address this question as well and bring out one of the points that Rashmi spoke about earlier in her opening remarks, but probably we need to dive a bit more deeper on that aspect. I think, first of all, strong consumption growth is very important in terms of getting the right set of brands to come to the mall. Both in the midst of both the experience factors that we drive through our marketing events and our fine dining destinations that we open up, as well as the entertainment centers that drive this sticky footfall, as well as in terms of the high trading density categories and the new upcoming fashion categories that one opens up at the mall. Now, strong consumption growth gives a great platform for our leasing teams to attract the right set of new brands to take space in the mall at better rentals or improved rev enue share percentages. And across our mall portfolio today, we have in the next three years, over 50% of the area is going to be up for renewals and repricing. That provides a great opportunity for us to reorient some of the low trading density stores, as well as renegotiate on rentals, as well as the revenue share that we are driving, and also add new experiences to the mall. So, this repositioning exercise is a continuous exercise . High consumption growth actually facilitates this conversation that our leasing teams do across malls. Does that address your question to some extent?

To an extent , but I want to understand. Let us assume, let us say, let u s take one store, for instance, and it is doing Rs. 100 of consumption and you are taking a Rs. 15 rental. Let’s say in the next month, the consumption moves to 200. Does that simply imply that the rental would move to 30 from 15? Is that repricing instant or there is a lead lag to that repricing?

Okay. Suppose our consumption is 100, typically, and a mall that has just started off, you see rentals being at about Rs. 11 or Rs. 12. Now, as consumption grows from say 100 to 200, and we typically expect consumption to double in our malls over a period of four to five years, this rental that we are seeing would naturally grow from 11 to 12. It grows to about 22 to 24. And with tweaks in the revenue share , with higher revenue share, et c, coming in, we are able to drive this towards Rs. 27, Rs. 28. So, the revenue share increases from an initial 11% to 12%. It goes up to 14 % to 15% as we tweak and fine tune the brand mix. And the c ommercial agreement, the economic agreement that we have with those particular brands. Historically, if you see FY13 to today, we have seen consumption growing at a 14% CAGR and our rentals keeping pace with that consumption growth over the last 12.5 years.

Okay. Also, a second question on the office assets. You have talked about the new assets doing 41%, but you ha ve excluded out two towers in Pune, about a million square feet, which got their OC in December. Any sense on what is the pre-leasing for those towers currently?

I think we, in fact, have a very strong pipeline for those towers as well, Murtuza. And, you know, we have a significant pipeline, which is in final closing stages, where we have agreed on the commercials and the documents are being negotiated and executed. Give us a quarter more and we will come back to you with very strong leasing updates for the overall portfolio.

Sure. All right. Thanks so much.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Gaurav Khandelwal from J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I have got a couple of those. My first question is, how much of the consumption strength in this quarter was due to GST cuts? And could you also give us some color on how are consumption trends different for the listed and unlisted players, which operate in your mall assets?

Thank you, Gaurav. Those are very interesting questions. I think on the GST cut, we have evaluated our brand portfolio. And the impact that we have is, I would say, it is a sentimentally positive impact. But otherwise, it is not that material a needle mover in our perspective. It has, I think, the prices of goods, especially when you look at clothing, etc, the impact is on a 3% to 4% level. And that really, you know, is not moving the needle much, per se. To your other question, I think, you k now, it i s better to compare, say, listed retailer performance to what they are reporting at their portfolio level. And when we have a number of large listed players with their flagship marquee stores across our portfolio, and we believe that the performance that they are seeing in our stores versus the overall portfolio performance that they are reporting, our stores have been demonstrating very s trong sustained growth over a period of the last several quarters within the brand mix.

Got it. Thank you. And just a housekeeping question. Your tax rate in the last two quarters have increased to almost 12%, which is much higher than that for the preceding eight to twelve quarters. How should I think about the ongoing tax rate from here for next quarter and next year? Does it normalize closer to 25% levels?

So, Kailash here, you know, I do not think this is the right way to compare the tax rates in every quarter because there would be some adjustment items which keep happening in every quarter. So, you should always look at the nine months or YTD numbers, which will give you better color to the tax numbers. If you see the YTD nine months for current year, it is around 23.7% on a blended basis. Now, th is year, somehow the two components, which is the hotel, which was actually having a huge accumulated losses earlier, has been completely exhausted. So, now that has come into a full tax regime, which is 25%. And even the residential business, which comes to a full tax regime . Otherwise, all the rental which we recover from either commercial assets or the retail is normally having a tax in the range of around 18% to 19%. So, my suggestion would be that for the modeling purpose, I think 22 % to 23% range will sustain in future. 25% could be in one of the quarter, but that is not something w hich will happen for the entire year.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Giris h Chaudhary from Avendus Spark. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. Thanks for the opportunity. Firstly, I have a question on the, like you mentioned on the repositioning exercise for malls like Bangalore, Pune a nd Chennai, right, where there is a convergence which is expected in the next three to six months. What I wanted to specifically understand is what is the repricing you ha ve been able to achieve versus the earlier brands in the same spaces?

Sure, Girish. So, in fact, let me say in Phoenix MarketCity Bangalore, for example, we have repriced almost 35% of the overall leasable area of the mall. And if I just compare the increase in the fixed rent compared to the total rent that we were seeing previously, we expect to see a 35% to 40% increase in the area that we have optimized in Phoenix MarketCity Bangalore. Similarly, in (Phoenix MarketCity) Pune as well, we have optimized and refreshed almost 40% of the area. And there, the overall impact that we are seeing is about a 25%.

Great. So, this, as in when the trading occupancy increases, right? Which is when we will start seeing the reflection of the repricing in our numbers?

Yes. So, in fact, Girish, trading occupancy starte d going back up in quarter 3 of this year. We had hit a low of 80% trading occupancy during quarter 1 . And now Phoenix MarketCity Bangalore and Pune are back to about 85 %-86% trading occupancy level. This should now naturally increase to about 90% by March 2026. And then in June, July of 2026, we should be back at about 94%-95% level.

So, for the incremental

Yes. I was just completing the point that from, you know, already we are starting to see a significant improvement in the trading density. So, Phoenix MarketCity Bangalore has reported a 30% growth in the trading density for Quarter 3 and Phoenix MarketCity Pune and Chennai have seen a 20% and an 18% growth in the trading density.

Got it. Sir, what I was also as a follow -up asking is that for the incremental 10% which is still there, right, convergence from leased and the trading occupancy moving up. So, this 35% , for example, for a mall in Bangalore, you will start seeing those reflecting in the numbers?

Yes. I think you will see the full impact of it in the numbers during FY27.

Girish, historically, we have seen anywhere between a 20 % and a 30% improvement. But that is driven not just by repricing of the existing brands, but also in terms of how we have optimized the area given to existing brands and new brands, as well as the economics that we have been able to negotiate with the incoming brand s. So, this is what we have done historically. And as we go ahead and renew the area going forward, we will keep you posted on how the rents are moving.

So, this 50%, which is, let us say, annualized 16%, 17% per year, is over and above the normal renewal rates, I mean, norms?

No. So, this 50%, I would say, Girish, is the contractual expiries that are coming up. Over and above this, we may, from time to time, do targeted churns and optimizations in consultation with our brand partners. And that is in addition to what is available to us contractually.

Got it. Thank you, Varun, and all the very best.

Thank you.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, due to the time constraint, that was the last question. I would like to hand the conference over to the management for the closing comments. Thank you, and over to you team.

Thank you so much, everyone, for joining us on today's conference call. We look forward to seeing you next quarter. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of The Phoenix Mills Limited that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines. This is a transcription and may contain transcription errors. The transcript has been edited for clarity. The Company takes no responsibility of such errors, although an effort has been made to ensure high level of accuracy.