The Phoenix Mills Limited

FY2026 Q4

2026-04-28 Transcript PDF
Moderator

The first question comes from the line of Puneet Gulati from HSBC.

Thank you so much and congratulations on good performance. My first question is with respect to the upcoming malls in Kolkata and Surat and also your residential project. Is it possible to get some sense of timeline as to what quarter for 2027 should we ex pect those?

Varun Parwal

Hi Puneet, so for Kolkata and Surat, we are expecting to launch it during FY28, in the second half of FY28.

Varun Parwal

Kolkata residential, Puneet, I think we are finalizing the design and the product mix in there and re-verifying the approvals. So, I think we will give you an update in our coming couple of quarters on the launch timeline for Kolkata residential.

Mohit Agarwal

Hi, good morning, everyone and thanks for the opportunity. My first question is on the consumption growth for Q4. So, can you share the ex of jewellery or let's say ex of non- or low-revenue share segments? What would be the consumption growth so let's say the 30% reported number. What would that be, ex of jewellery or non -revenue share segments?

Varun Parwal

Sure, Mohit. So, if I take out jewellery and electronics, both of which have had very strong growth during FY26, but they are structurally lower as far as revenue share is concerned, then our Q4 consumption growth would come in at about 17 -18% for the rest of the portfolio. In fact, we believe that what you see in Fashion or F&B or in Cinema and Entertainment, this has been the strongest set of sequential quarterly growth numbers that we have seen over the last 3-4 years in these categories.

Mohit Agarwal

And as we move into FY27, how do you see this jewellery and electronics growth stabilizing and the gap between the consumption growth and the rental growth on the reported basis? Would that narrow or would this gap continue in FY27 as well?

Varun Parwal

So, Mohit, we have a lot of moving positive factors at play, at this point in time. If I first talk about the portfolio, you will see the trading occupancy at Phoenix MarketCity Pune and Bangalore going up substantially in the coming quarters. It's not just occupancy that's moving up, but also the kind of retailers and the impact that they will have on the trading densities, consumption and the overall rental growth. We have already guided to a strong double-digit growth from these two mall portfolios that we should see during FY27. Further, you should see the stabilization of Phoenix Mall of the Millennium and Phoenix Mall of Asia, which have seen over a 10% increase in their occupancies during FY26. This should stabilize and start contributing to rent, so you get a stable base to compare the rentals on. And further, these two are the core set of malls that we have spoken about, but across the portfolio, we have a significant amount of lease expiries that are coming up, which gives us a great opportunity to renew good performing brands and also introduce new categories across malls like Phoenix Palassio and other malls where we have a number of expiries. Now, if you collectively take these three factors into consideration, we continue to remain positive as far as rental growth across our portfolio is concerned. And electronics and gold and jewelry, if they continue to grow well, you will see a strong momentum in consumption, but even if they moderate, I don't think it will have that material impact on rental growth for FY27. Does that address your question, Mohit?

Mohit Agarwal

Yes. So, rental growth, irrespective of how the consumption number moves, this will continue to be, as Rashmi mentioned, mid-to-high double-digit growth.

Varun Parwal

Yes. Mohit.

Mohit Agarwal

My second question is on your opening remarks on office portfolio. You mentioned that you are targeting 90% occupancy in the next few quarters. Now, clearly here, Bangalore is the big thing that can move. It is about 33% lease d. So, what is the outlook on that asset, Bangalore office? And secondly, on your RISE Commercial, how are you looking at, so while it is still getting constructed, are you kind of reaching out to IPCs and trying to lease out? What is the strategy in terms of leasing out that asset?

Varun Parwal

Great question s, Mohit. Thank you so much. I think, first of all, the response from the tenant for our office products has been simply phenomenal in the last 12 months. We, in fact, while we have announced that we have closed leasing of 2.2 million sq. ft., we also have several deals in the pipeline where commercials are closed and documentation is under execution. And I think what has helped to set these office assets apart are the amenity and the product experiences that we have provided. At the base level, the product that we have delivered is of the highest standard in the market in terms of energy efficiency, in terms of layout, etc. And we have further complemented it by adding never - seen-before amenities like a great hall which provides all office occupiers with private meeting rooms, great cafes, entertainment areas, etc. And we also integrated at specific locations mall offerings and lifestyle amenities like clubs, etc. , that have really set these offices apart and they have become the go -to address for corporates who have their addresses in these respective cities. I am not taking any names on this call of the tenants who have come in, but if you follow our LinkedIn page, you will see many tenants have posted about opening their new city headquarters in our office portfolio. And we have several other more prominent o ccupiers in the pipeline that we are very hopeful of converting. Similarly, Mohit, I think like retail, we believe in creating destination offices and RISE is going to be a similar product that is going to be set apart from the rest of the development that you see in the city. We are already engaging with IPCs and tenants and conversations are at an advanced stage here. And finally, to address your question on Bangalore, we have a very strong pipeline, so while you see a leased occupancy in the late 30s right now, we expect it to move up substantially in the coming couple of quarters.

Mohit Agarwal

Okay. Just a clarification, any pre-leasing that you have already closed in for RISE so far?

Varun Parwal

We will come back and make those disclosures, Mohit, the minute we start signing LOIs. But talks are moving at an advanced stage at this point in time.

Moderator

All the best. Thank you. Participants, please restrict yourselves to two questions. For any more questions, you may rejoin the queue. Our next question comes from the line of Puneet Gulati from HSBC. Please go ahead.

Yes, sorry, I dropped out. My question is on the Phoenix MarketCity Bangalore and Pune, where we have seen good comeback in terms of consumption growth, but it is yet to be visible in rental growth. How should one read that?

Rashmi Sen

So, we have about 9% of area, both in Phoenix MarketCity Pune and Bangalore, which is leased but under fit-out and has not started trading. So, we will see the upside of rental of that area in the current year, FY27, as well as a lot of churns that happened during the year and brands have opened during different periods and some in Q3, Q4. So, you will also see the full upside of that rental in FY27. So, Phoenix MarketCity, Pune, we will see close to 14- 15% rental upside in FY27, and PMC Bangalore is going to be close to 20% increase in the rental income.

So, there's just a bit of lag from consumption to rental over a quarter.

Rashmi Sen

I think what Varun answered earlier, apparel and accessories, which is close to 60% of our portfolio, continues to grow at 15 -16% and we may see that continued seasonal jump in jewelry and electronics. So, you will see that slight difference between the growth rate of consumption and rental. But otherwise, it all looks very healthy in terms of both the consumption increase and the rental increase and both will grow at a similar pace.

Understood. That's helpful. And lastly, on slightly philosophical side, you have two small malls, Phoenix United in Bareilly and Lucknow and a hotel in Agra, not meaningfully contributing. What is your thought about divesting those assets or do they serve a purpose in your portfolio?

Shishir Srivastava

Puneet, we have not thought about divesting those assets. We have a strong team in the North which has an oversight on all of these assets and amongst the larger assets that we have in North that are upcoming. So, we have not thought about divesting these, but we take your point that these are not very impactful in the overall financial statements, they don't have much of an impact. However, there is potential in these cities as they continue to grow. So, there could be a model to expand on, but for the moment we have not thought about that.

Moderator

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

Axis Capital

Thanks for the opportunity. Good morning to the team. First question is on the upcoming expiries, almost 50% of the portfolio next three years coming up for expiry, three to four years. What kind of rental upside that we see based on the existing contracted rents and what the actual market rents are? If you can guide us on that.

Varun Parwal

Thanks Pritesh for the question. Let me take a step back and talk about what we have done in FY26. In FY2 6, Rashmi spoke about doing about 3.2 million sq. ft. of these across the portfolio. If I take out the deals that we have done at our under-construction assets, we are talking about almost nearly 2 million sq. ft. of deals that is done at the existing operational portfolio. Within this portfolio during FY26, I think on a blended average, we have seen nearly a 20% growth in rentals between n ew deals and renew als combined. Now, we have a strong lea sing expiry pipeline that is there and we have identified opportunities to reposition especially in terms of the brands and category met as well as the F&B experiences like Gourmet Village that Rashmi spoke about earlier. We will use this opportunity to reposition the mall and target strong rental upside not too dissimilar from what you have seen in FY26 as well.

Axis Capital

Not too different than what we have seen in FY26, right?

Varun Parwal

That is what our endeavor would be and I think market conditions staying supportive , we hope to deliver on that.

Axis Capital

Sure, and beyond these expiries, the rest of the portfolio will grow at your contractual kind of levels or there also there will be contractual plus revenue share coming into picture and hence, it would more or less be linked to the consumption growth as well.

Varun Parwal

A strong, strong endeavor internally to ensure that every retailer is having their best performing stores at our malls and hence, our marketing efforts, our customer engagement initiatives and all the events that we do is targeted to ensure that retailers are growing not just at 5% but at much higher growth rates year after year. So, I would say that the rest of the portfolio outside of the expir ies should continue to see reasonable growth year on year.

Rashmi Sen

I would also like to add one point to that that in addition to the expir ies, we also continue the ongoing churn to bring in newer brands that are coming into the market and as you have seen in recent times in Phoenix Market City Pune, Bangalore, we have seen over the last two years, we have seen 10% to 20% to 25% churn that we have done. So, this will also bring in the increased rental impact in addition to the upcoming expir ies because that is an ongoing process.

Varun Parwal

I think, Pritesh, in our presentation, we have already guided to reaching about 90% by the end of Q1, right? And because we have certain identified stores like Uniqlo and other stores that are scheduled to open and our lease occupancies, if you see at Bangalore and Pune, Bangalore is already entirely leased, and Pune is also near 100% leasing at this point in time. So, the trading occupancy should also move up towards the 95-96% levels by the end of FY27.

Axis Capital

Sure, sure. And just one last on the office side.

Varun Parwal

Yes, go ahead, Pritesh.

Axis Capital

Just one last on the office side. When should we start expecting rentals from the newer office assets around from Q2 onwards since these assets were completed towards the end of last year?

Varun Parwal

Yes, Pritesh, I think you should expect to see revenue coming in from Q2 onwards and quarter-on-quarter you should see revenue growing. I don't want to hazard a guess, but I would estimate that our quarterly income from office assets should double from current levels by the time next year Quarter 4 comes around.

Axis Capital

Sure, got it. That's helpful. Thanks, and all the best.

Varun Parwal

Thank you.

Moderator

Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Parikshit Kandpal from HDFC Securities. Please go ahead.

HDFC Securities

Yes, hi team. Congratulations on a good quarter. So, my first question is on the rentals. So, we have seen 21% consumption growth has translated to 10% growth in rentals. So, just wanted to understand if the mix of the tenant remains the same. So, is it correct to assume that typically conversion from consumption to rental will be roughly up to half, like 50%?

Varun Parwal

Parikshit, thank you. That's an interesting question. Just for everyone listening in I will just maybe give a backdrop on how our lease structure is structured and why it creates an intentional gap at times between consumption growth and rental growth. As you are aware, our leases are higher of fixed rent or revenue share, whichever is higher. Now, the fixed rent at the beginning of the lease creates downside protection for us. So, even when stores are ramping up their consumption and their retailer sale s may not have reached the threshold level at which they start paying revenue share to us, we still continue to benefit and enjoy downside protection from the fixed rent. And once consumption crosses and reaches the threshold level, then our rent starts mo ving alongside it. You have seen this normalization play out in the last two years in Phoenix Mall of the Millennium and Mall of Asia, where rent to consumption have moderated to what our portfolio average levels of about 10-11% for new malls. Going forward, the rent should continue to grow. The growth and consumption would depend on a ) where the high growth but low revenue share categories like jewellery and electronics come in. And I would say that if market conditions stay the way they are, the gap between rent and consumption should continue to naturally narrow as we go forward and the revenue share component of our rental fees continue kicking in and bridging the gap.

HDFC Securities

So, out of the INR 2,157 crore of rent, how much was minimum guarantee and how much was revenue share?

Varun Parwal

We typically don't provide that breakup, Parikshit but you may consider 90% of the rental income to be fixed in nature and the rest is incremental revenue share over and above the fixed rent that we generate from retailers.

HDFC Securities

And since the last question on the 10% growth in rentals, which we have seen, if you can help us understand backdrop of what was the impact of the ramp -up in trading occupancies, like-to-like, if we had to compare what could have been the actual rental growth because I think newer malls have seen a sharp ramp -up in trading occupancies which could have added additional delta. I just want to understand and also on the volume and pricing bit how much do you think that people have achieved because I think you said some areas were under renewal and we got 20% growth there , so I just wanted to understand whether the pricing is tracking inflation at least.

Varun Parwal

Yeah, I think there are many parts to unpack in that question but if I try and take a short - arm jab at that question, I would say that first of all factually trading area at a portfolio level hasn't increased compared to last year. You have seen trading occupancy go up in Phoenix Mall of the Millennium and Phoenix Mall of Asia but at the same time we have lost some area in Phoenix Palladium which is intentionally under redevelopment at this point in time and we have repositioned the Phoenix Market City Malls which has also led to a temporary intentional drop in trading occupancy. So, when we compare at our end, when we look at the data and we see trading areas across the portfolio, FY26 was at the same level or slightly below FY25. Of course in terms of trading density like you alluded to Phoenix Market City Mall s have seen a significant growth in trading density which are in excess of 20% for the quarter and also overall for the full year as well and that's an outcome at times of deliberate selection of which retailers continue to stay and what type of events we do to manage the impact from lower trading area in the mall.

Parikshit Khandpal

Thank you.

Moderator

Our next question comes from the line of Parvez Qazi from Nuvama Group.

Nuvama Group

Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Two questions from my side first. First, you said that consumption growth ex of electronics and jewelry was maybe 17-18% in Q4. What would have been a similar number for FY26 as a whole?

Varun Parwal

Sorry Parvez Are you asking for a similar number for FY25 or FY27?

Nuvama Group

FY26 consumption growth was 21% but if you adjust for jewelry and electronics then what would that number have been?

Varun Parwal

Okay, that number would have been 14 -15% adjusted for jewelry and electronics for the full year of FY26. For Quarter 4 that number was closer to 18% and for Q uarter 3 that was 16%.

Nuvama Group

Sure. The second question is, I mean obviously , the current economic environment is volatile. So what has been the consumption trend in April, and I mean again ex of jewelry and electronics, what do you think FY27 consumption growth looks like?

Rashmi Sen

So, April is looking very good. We are seeing close to a 30% growth in April. We have also had Akshay Tritiya in April. So obviously the jewelry continues to have that seasonal upside in the month of April and without this category the growth would fall somewhere between 17-18%.

Moderator

The next question comes from the line of Girish Chaudhary from Avend us Spark. Please go ahead.

Avend us Spark

Hi, good morning. Thanks for the opportunity. Some of my questions have been answered. I have just one. On the visibility in terms of number of malls, you have an announced pipeline which will take you to around 18 million sq. ft. by 2030. So, looking at let us say you have been wanting to enter new cities beyond where you are present like let us say Hyderabad or the Delhi NCR kind of markets or other Tier-1, Tier -2 markets. And, the construction or development cycle takes to 4-5 years. So just wanted to get a sense on the land scouting strategy. So, how should we look at beyond 2030?

Varun Parwal

Girish, we are hard at work, and we are actively scouting the cities that we have also put out in our presentation. This includes Hyderabad, Jaipur, Navi Mumbai amongst others. And fingers crossed, we will be announcing one or two transactions during FY27 in terms of new city expansion. That said, we do have substantial opportunities within our existing portfolio. So, like how we are undertaking expansion of Phoenix Palladium and Phoenix Market City Bangalore and converting them into super cam puses. We do have such opportunities across the rest of the portfolio as well. And we will evaluate and share the same going forward.

Moderator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, due to time constraints, that was the last question for today. I would now like to hand the conference over to the Management for the closing remarks.

Varun Parwal

Thank you everyone for joining us. And should you have any follow-up questions, reach out to our IR Team led by Karl and Madhurima for further follow-ups. Thank you.

Moderator

Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of The Phoenix Mills Limited , that concludes this conference call. 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.