DLF Ltd, the largest real-estate developer in the country by market value, is looking at raising Rs 1,250 crore by exiting projects, selling land plots and a refund from the Haryana government. The company said it is looking to divest assets at fair market value and has already realised about Rs 170 crore in the third quarter bringing the total to Rs 1,234 crore raised during the first nine months. The developer said it has visibility to raise Rs 1,000 crore as refunds from the Haryana government, resale of land plots from Gurgaon and exits from couple of projects by March end. However, the New Delhi-based company has put its plan to sell the wind power business on backburner as it is expecting the valuation of the business to go up based on healthy returns. DLF had indicated that they have an offer of Rs 1,000 crore for the business.

“This (wind power) business generates about Rs 160-170 crore revenue which gives us a return of 15%. We are thinking internally on when to divest this business given the excellent post-tax returns we get in this line of business,” Saurabh Chawla, executive director – finance, DLF said in a conference with analysts. Chawla said the company is in negotiations with Delhi Development Authority (DDA) for settlement of Dwarka project which is expected to fetch Rs 900 crore by the next fiscal. “We should achieve the target of Rs 2,500 crore of divestments for this year excluding wind and Dwarka exit,” the DLF official said.

Meanwhile, the developer said that it has been able to reduce average cost of debt from 11.9% in December 2008 to 10.6% in December 2009 as it has retired the short-term, more expensive debt with cheaper long-term debt. The earlier announced integration of DLF Assets Ltd (DAL) with DLF is expected to be completed this quarter and would be followed by a potential listing on the Singapore stock exchange. Over the last nine months, DLF has received Rs 3,000 crore from DAL and the company has reduced its net debt by Rs 1,200 crore and used the rest as operating expense.

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