Financially, Max Estates remains comfortable with net cash positivity of around ₹150 crore as of June 30, 2025, despite a gross debt of ₹1,500 crore, largely tied to commercial assets.
Collections guidance for FY26 is pegged at ₹2,600 crore, with nearly half already realised, giving Max Estates confidence in maintaining momentum despite infrastructure challenges in NCR and global uncertainties.This is the edited excerpt of the interview:
Q: This ₹6,000 to 6,500 crore pre-sales target that you have in FY26. What is the pipeline for this guidance that you have and will it be all luxury projects, will it be a mix, and what kind of price points are you focusing on?
A: In the current year, what we are planning to do is a launch of close to ₹9,500 crore across the key markets of Delhi-NCR, in Noida, in Gurgaon. This is across three projects. Against this ₹9,500 crores, we are expecting to do a sale of ₹6,000 to 6,500 crores. These projects are expected to be launched in the second half of the current financial year. These would be more in the price range of ₹20,000 to ₹23,000 a square feet in-line with what we have done in these micro markets earlier.
Q: What would be your rental income projection as well? You have a rental potential of ₹725 crore. Where do you stand currently, and by when do you expect to reach that mark? What would that do to your consolidated debt? What is that number like right now, and does that trend down as the year goes forward?
A: As we speak, we are currently in a rental run rate of close to ₹150 crore. We have projected that by FY29, we would have a complete rental portfolio of close to ₹723 crore. We expect these numbers to be gradually scaled up in FY28 and FY29.
Our commercial portfolio currently we have got New York Life Insurance Company (NYL) as a 49% partner. This rental is currently operating at an EBITDA margin of 90% to 95% spread across Noida and Gurgaon.
The current debt, which we have on the books on June 30, is approximately ₹1,500 crore. This is predominantly on account of commercial assets. Of this, around ₹900 crores is towards lease rental discounting and the balance is towards the construction fact and finance. The important point to note here is against this less of ₹1,500 crores, we have a cash balance of close to ₹1,650 crores resulting in a net cash positive of close to ₹150 crore.
Q: Are you expecting any more investments coming in from New York Life is it something which is on the cards, and this ₹725 crore of potential that you are seeing in your lease assets, what kind of portfolio will you be seeing? What will the size of the portfolio be in that case?A: We would be looking at a total portfolio size in the range of 6 to 7 million square feet, once this entire project is completed and delivered. New York Life as we speak has already committed a total capital of close to ₹1800 crore with us of which they have already deployed close to ₹1,600 crore. They have been our partners in all our commercial assets having a 49% shareholding, and there are shareholders at holding company holding 21% shareholding. They evaluate each project on an individual basis and deploy accordingly.
Q: We are almost 2/3 of the way into the current quarter as well. How has the demand situation been on the ground? I particularly ask you this question because of the global uncertainties we are currently surrounded by, which may impact certain sectors. We have also seen layoffs being announced by a few major companies in the country. What does that do to demand on the ground, especially within your commercial portfolio?
A: It does have a negative sentiment bearing in case we have seen layoffs happening in the tech sector. But what we have seen in our portfolio currently is that we have not seen any impact. Our rental portfolio currently stands at 100% leased with a strong demand coming from the GCC. As we speak today, our rental portfolio is entirely leased, getting a premium of 30 to 35% over the micro market.
What we believe our quality product is able to command a premium remains kind of neutral to the demand vagaries at this point of time.
Q: This is about the quality products that you would be providing in the commercial portfolio. However, the other problem that has been happening in the NCR region that is where your majority portfolio also is present is the pricing premium. The fear is that the pricing premium would go down, and builders will not be able to take price hikes the way they have been. What is your take on that and secondly, while you can build a quality product, the infrastructure may not be that great because whatever we’ve been seeing with rains across Gurgaon and Noida, even across flats that are ranging ₹50 to 100 crore, but the infrastructure is not supporting that. What happens to pricing and demand in that case?
Q: Infrastructure does pose a challenge, as you would have seen yesterday’s rains exposed infrastructure challenges at Gurgaon. However, having said that, there has been significant progress, which is being made on the infrastructure side. As far as our demand is concerned, what we believe is that we are able to provide a significant value add to the customer, which protects the demand which comes to us. Furthermore, we have also been able to segment the market in the senior living in the normal residential market, which helps us in protects our prices and demand both.
Q: So based on all of this, how does FY26 shape up for you? Is there a collection guidance figure that you have zeroed in on, if you could tell us more about that?
A: In the current year, we have given guidance of a collection of close to ₹2,600 crore. This ₹2,600 crore is made up of two components. We have a component of the inventory that we have already sold, for which we are expecting a collection to be in the range of ₹1,400-1,500 crore. As we speak today, we have already made a collection of close to ₹450 crore against that. We are expecting another collection of ₹1,000-1,200 crore to come from the new sales.
Since I previously mentioned, we have a guidance of ₹6,000 to ₹6500 crore for the year and we do an equity distributed collection plans. We are expecting ₹1200 crore to come from the new sales which is expected to come in the second half of the current financial. So, all told, we are looking at the number of ₹2,600 crore, of which we have already collected close to ₹400 crore.
Max Estates’ current market capitalisation stands at ₹6,974.12 crore. The stock closed at ₹430 on the NSE as of 3:30 pm and has declined 28% over the past year.
