Juniper Hotels Ltd

Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to Q1 FY ‘26 Earnings Conference Call of Juniper Hotels Limited, hosted by MUFG Intime India Private Limited.

We have with us today Mr. Arun Saraf – Chairman and Managing Director; Mr. Varun Saraf – Chief Executive Officer; and Mr. Tarun Jaitly – Chief Financial Officer.

As a reminder, all participants’ lines will be in the listen-only mode. And there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during this conference call, please signal an operator by pressing “*”, then “0” on your touch- tone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded.

Certain statements disclosed in this presentation or that may be disclosed over this call may relate to company's growth prospects, that are forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable securities, laws and regulations. These forward-looking statements are not the guarantees of future performance as they are subject to known and unknown risks which are beyond the control of the company.

I now hand over the conference over to Mr. Arun Saraf. Thank you and over to you, Mr. Saraf.

Thank you. Good evening, everyone. And thank you for joining us on today's call to discuss our financial results for the 1st Quarter of Fiscal 2026.

I am pleased to report that Juniper Hotels has delivered a resilient and good performance in Q1 FY ‘26 in the face of a quarter marred with sector headwinds as a result of Operation Sindoor in the Indian subcontinent during May. In spite of extreme impact of Operation Sindoor, Juniper achieved highest ever Q1 revenue of Rs. 221 crores. Our results reflect not only the inherent strength of our premium portfolio but also the effectiveness and our focus on improving operational efficiencies across our properties.

This month of May saw significant disruptions in air travel, especially across northern and western India. Both domestic and international travel was impacted as with the temporary shutdown of approximately 30 airports across multiple states as well as cancellations of more than 200 flights. While demand has rebounded very quickly as things normalized, June saw another unfortunate aviation accident in Ahmedabad. Our prayers go out to all the victims and families of the airplane crash.

Mumbai, Delhi and Ahmedabad experienced sharp cancellations of corporate and transient bookings and deferment of MICE events immediately after the Sindoor was launched. Travel advisories led multinational companies to postpone and relocate conferences, pushing citywide occupancies and rates down. However, the underlying demand continues to be strong in the hospitality space, which has seen the ARRs continuing to grow on year-on-year basis. Juniper portfolio also achieved a 9% growth in ARR over last year.

Page 3 of 15 Indian hospitality sector is currently benefiting from strong domestic demand and a favorable demographic shift towards higher income households, good infrastructure development and a policy of support by the government.

As per industry reports, branded hotel supply is expected to grow at 8.4% CAGR through FY ‘28, while demand is projected to outpace this at 10.4% CAGR. In this context, luxury and upper upscale segments where Juniper operates are expected to continue outperforming due to a persistent demand-supply gap. Ample headroom is there to sustain RevPAR growth across industry providing continued tailwind to our pricing and profitability.

It is also important for me to spend some time on walking you through our growth plans that have manifested into a robust pipeline of upcoming hotels. We have a clear and ambitious trajectory focused on doubling our key count to 4,000 by Financial Year ‘29.

To elaborate more, Bangalore Phase-1 continues to be progressing very well, on track to achieve the opening of hotel with 235 keys by end of Q4 Financial Year ’26, that is by end of Q4 this financial year. We have already completed design phase of Bangalore Phase 2, the additional rooms to be added to this existing hotel that we are now going to open in Q4 of ‘26. This expansion of 273 keys will make it one of a very large big box hotels in our portfolio.

We have also completed the design work of Guwahati Hotel, located Downtown Guwahati, and we are set to add 250 rooms to our portfolio. And we intend to initiate construction of 116 key Kaziranga project by September of this year. Juniper has also submitted bids for NCR and Bihar greenfield opportunities, which will be opened by August end. I hope that we will be able to be successful in these two bids and they will become significant part of our going forward growth trajectory.

The ROFO integration process continues to make positive progress, and we remain confident of our timelines of integration in FY ‘27. This pipeline enables a step up in growth every year till FY ‘30, contemplating our strong underlying portfolio, which itself will continue to deliver steady compounded growth.

Before I hand over to Tarun Jaitly, our CFO, let me sign off by reiterating that our disciplined financial management, strategic growth investments, and unwavering commitment to service and excellence positions us well for the quarters ahead. I am confident of achieving key growth goals as set out above and ensure a sustained value creation for all our stakeholders. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. I will walk you through some of the key highlights. The presentation has already been circulated, so I will keep it short.

The total income for the quarter stood at Rs. 227 crores, which is an 11% Y-o-Y increase, and this is in a quarter, mind you, where we saw this impact of Operation Sindoor. The important thing, the driver for the overall revenue growth has been ARRs, which have grown 9% Y-o-Y,

Page 4 of 15 and that just underlines the continued and inherent demand pull that the sector continues to witness.

Mumbai saw ARR rose by 13% in Q1, while Delhi ARR increased 9%. Importantly, the apartment ARR also increased 18% in Delhi and 24% in Mumbai. Mumbai, Ahmedabad and Lucknow outperformed their respective comp set in ARR during the quarter, and they were the key drivers for this growth. On the occupancy side, overall occupancy grew 2% to 71% for the overall portfolio in Q1, despite the cancellations and demand impact because of the May events.

The standard annuity business, which comprises the lease and the apartments, increased to roughly Rs. 34 crores. We have seen today the lease-based occupancy at 85%, which also provides headroom for growth to increase the occupancy over the next few quarters.

Juniper achieved healthy growth of 5 percentage points in EBITDA in this quarter vis-à-vis the Q1 last year, translating into a 27% Y-o-Y growth in EBITDA to Rs. 86.4 crores. The key influences for this expansion in margins are, as I said, ARRs. Second is reduction in heat, light, and power, energy costs for us as the contribution of green energy rose in this quarter vis-à-vis the last quarter. Admin and general expenses fell from 12.5% of revenue to 11.5%. And the reduction in R&M costs were roughly around Rs. 2.5 crores in absolute terms during Q1. The margin expansion could have been higher, but the limiting factors were the Operation Sindoor impact and also some amount of increase in consumables during the quarter.

On the interest cost side, interest has fallen 21% Y-o-Y, reflecting our reduced debt. Our average cost of borrowing is today around 8.3%, and we expect it to soften further given what's happening in the benchmark rates in the sector. Juniper achieved a PBT before exceptional of Rs. 35 crores, which is a 167% growth Y-o-Y.

I would like to note that there's an exceptional item, a provision of Rs. 17.1 crores in Q1 FY ‘26.

This is on account of an incident in Bengaluru, a fire incident in Bengaluru that happened in April 2025, and that is the provisional provision that we have taken during the quarter. We expect to receive further transfers from insurance claims. It's fully insured, and these provisions will be reversed as and when we continue to get the insurance claims over the next few quarters in this fiscal year.

We maintain that Bengaluru hotel opening timelines continue to be, as Mr. Saraf also reiterated, by the end of this fiscal year. We are continuing to maintain that timeline. And looking at the balance sheet, we continue to maintain a strong and healthy balance sheet with net bank debt to TTM EBITDA at around 1.3. And as communicated earlier, with a five-year outlook up to FY ‘30, we enjoy a significant headroom of Rs. 3,000 crores, which comes in from a mix of comfortable debt metrics, strong cash flow, and cash deposits on hand today.

With that, I would like to hand over the floor to the operator, and we are open for Q&A.

Thank you very much. We will now begin with the question-and-answer session. The first question is from Abhay Khaitan from Axis Capital. Please go ahead.

Page 5 of 15 Hey. Hi, team. Thank you for the opportunity. And I congratulate the team for very good numbers this quarter. So, my first question is on the ARR trends. So, while we saw that the luxury segment has seen a very strong ARR growth of around 12%, the upper upscale and upscale segment have seen a 6% growth. So, I just wanted to ask if there are any particular hotels or segments where we are seeing some sort of slowdown, or is it like a broad-based thing in this segment?

Hi, Abhay. For the quarter that has gone by, the ARRs obviously have increased much more sharply in Delhi and Mumbai than possibly in Raipur and Hampi. But again, this is an intermittent trend, there is no specific reason that I can attribute for marginally lower growth compared to Delhi and Mumbai in ARR in the quarter gone by. There is no structural difference that we see that would cause that on an ongoing basis.

Understood. Thanks. That is clear. My second question is on the Grand Hyatt Mumbai in particular. So, last year, around Q1 and Q2, we saw significant renovation work, and which caused the impact on occupancy. So, when can we expect to see that sort of incremental revenue sort of being coming in? Whether a bulk of it would be Q2 and Q3? And if so happens, can you quantify how much would be the incremental revenue that we are looking at, just based on the fact that the renovations work is over and we expect full occupancy there?

Right. So, in Q4 last fiscal was the first quarter when we saw the numbers of stabilization of Grand Hyatt, which continues in the current fiscal year. The only aberration is Q1 because of the Operation Sindoor, that led to not only just the cancellations, but overall travel bans and all the other events impacted Mumbai and Delhi markets, which see a lot of inbound and outbound traffic. And that has impacted this quarter from an occupancy standpoint. But that's not impacted the area, despite the short term occupancy impact. We will and we are continuing to see month on month now the impact of stabilization of Grand Hyatt occupancy. And we will see the full benefit of it for this fiscal year, as we had promised and communicated earlier.

Understood. Another question, if I may, regarding the foreign travel aspects, Mr. Safar mentioned in his opening remark as well that bulk of the demand is still coming from the domestic side. Are we seeing any improvement in the foreign travel yet or this quarter again, because it was impacted by Operation Sindoor, we still are not seeing the incoming of foreign tourists?

So, we are seeing now the pickup. Post Operation Sindoor, obviously, there was impact. But if we see the past two months trend, I think we have come back to the normative levels of foreign versus local traffic, at least across our portfolio.

Also, Q1 is relatively low on foreign travel coming in. It's the leisure segment which does affect Delhi and a few other hotels, that usually happens in Q3, Q4. You may see an upside there. But as of now, as Tarun mentioned, it is at a stable state.

Page 6 of 15 Got it. And just a last thing for me. So, how has the July and August trended in terms of overall growth? Are we seeing the momentum being continued in the last one, two months as well?

Okay. So I can share some numbers with you on ARRs, right, I mean, so if you look at the July ARRs in Delhi, for instance, we continue to see a 13% growth, 18% growth in Ahmedabad, Raipur 5% plus Y-o-Y growth. So, I mean, those growth trends overall, we are continuing to see. On an overall basis, in July, our ARRs would have grown by roughly 6% odd Y-o-Y. But we intend that this would pick up momentum as we get into the next few months.

Got it. Thanks a lot. I will get back in the queue.

Yes, thank you. And also, just to cap it up, the ARRs on apartments have also grown between 8% to 19% in Mumbai and Delhi, respectively.

Okay. And sorry, what is the number for Mumbai, Grand Hyatt? 8% apartment and residences 19% in Delhi.

Okay. And the Grand Hyatt Hotel by itself?

Grand Hyatt continues to see a couple of percentage point increase Y-o-Y on the ARRs. Okay, got it. Thanks a lot.

Thank you very much. Next question is from the line of Sumant Kumar from Motilal Oswal. Please go ahead.

Yes. Hi, sir. So, can you talk about the MICE activity in the current month, how is the MICE activity and forward booking for that? Because of Operation Sindoor we have seen a cancellation. Is there any spillover of the business to coming month? And also, marriages has been rescheduled to the coming auspicious day, so how is the booking for that?

So, there were cancellations in May and June. I believe those businesses will be picked up going forward. Q3, Q4 business on books is very, very strong in the bigger cities, even the smaller cities are doing very well. So, in my opinion, the business, it’s been displaced, it's not been canceled. And some events, some large MNCs which did land up canceling, I believe they will reschedule. So, I believe the MICE segment remains very strong. And that is one of our strengths at Juniper. And we will continue to play to that.

Can we expect the Q2 occupancy side we can see improvement for Juniper? And ARR also momentum is going to strengthen from Q1?

Yes, compared to Q1, you will definitely see an improvement in terms of ARR as well as in terms of the numbers.

Page 7 of 15 And the forward booking is also strong?

Yes, forward bookings for Q3 look very, very strong.

And Q2? Compared to previous year, say, the forward booking X percentage in Q2 FY ‘25, how is the Q2 FY ‘26 forward booking?

Also, the same trend will continue, compared to last year Q2 will be better, you will see a growth.

Okay. And now coming to the foreign customer, how is the momentum compared to previously, so the current quarter?

So foreign travel was affected. I mean, if you want to go back historically, in general, there is less foreign travel happening in terms of business, right? Domestic share as part of overall business has increased. Compared to Q4 of last year and Q1, there is a decline. I think the travel advisories did have an impact. Delhi did not have any major dignitary movements coming in, in May or June, so that did impact the foreign travel. But I do believe as things have stabilized, this will come back to a normalcy and it will continue to increase.

Thank you. Next question is from Lokesh Manik from Vallum Capital. Please go ahead. Please go ahead.

Yes, hi. Good evening to the team. My question was on the tax charge. So, Tarun, the deferred tax is at roughly Rs. 8 crores. Do we expect this to continue going forward or does this go to zero now from the next quarter?

So, this time also there is a reversal on the deferred that we have taken off around Rs. 8.9 crores.

As we get more profitable, you will see some amount of tax reversals that we have, at least for this year. There would be a marginal tax status that we would have. But as I said, we continue to have a large amount of tax shields, which will help us in the next couple of years.

So, the amortization at Rs. 8 crores will roughly continue, plus minus Rs. 1 crores or Rs. 2 crores? Yes, plus minus. Yes, yes.

Great, great. Thank you. That's it from my side.

Thank you. Next question is from the line of Raghav Malik from Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Yes, hi. Thank you for the opportunity. And congrats on a good set of numbers. I had two questions. So, the first one is on Grand Hyatt ARRs, I believe Mr. Jaitly mentioned just now for

Page 8 of 15 July and August it is stacking a few percentage points higher versus last year. So, is this more a function of the slow growth in the Mumbai market, or is it more because of slower growth post reopening for some of the renovations that we have done? Could you provide some more color on this, please?

Yes, hi. So, no, it's not an impact or slow recovery from the renovation. I think we have the full inventory of Grand Hyatt, as I said, since Q4 last year. It's just this quarter gone by, generally, the overall market has been a little slow. But I think, given the context, we are continuing to see, as I said, reasonably decent ARR growth, fairly healthy. And if I were to give you a number, let's take, for instance the Q1 for Grand Hyatt, the ARR grew 13%, right, we kind of outpaced the CompSet. Delhi, the ARR grew 9%, and we kind of outpaced the CompSet there also. So, I think, overall, while we will trend with what is happening on the broader market, with a fresher product and higher share of transient and MICE business, we are aiming to at least outperform our CompSet in the key markets in which we operate.

And also, occupancy for last year, because of renovations will probably be much lower, right?

So, if you look at RevPAR, maybe that would track significantly higher than ARRs in any case?

Yes. As you will go forward, in the next few quarters you will see Y-o-Y better RevPAR growth.

Sure, understood. And the second question was on, so in your presentation you have mentioned this fourth upcoming asset beyond Kaziranga, Bangalore and Guwahati. So, could you provide some color on that? Any details there?

Yes, I would request Varun Saraf to answer the question.

So, in terms of our ongoing projects, Bangalore Phase-1, as I said, as was mentioned, the work is ongoing. We expect to open that hotel in Q4 of FY ’26, that's 235 rooms. During our last discussions we had mentioned that Phase 2 for Bangalore would also get launched. We have launched it. The design process has been initiated. Drawings have been complete. Approvals are underway. We do intend to start construction of that as well towards the end of this current year, that's 273 rooms.

Followed by that is the Guwahati project. We own this land in Chartered Hotels. It has been sitting there since the merger of the company. This hotel will also be built. It will be a luxury hotel with 250 rooms. We have started the design process. The Assam government has reached out to us, as we were doing the Kaziranga Hotel, they have asked us to initiate this project, and we are taking this at a fast pace.

We have started the design process. Drawing approvals have been submitted. And again, we will intend to start construction of this towards the end of the current year. So, these are two ongoing projects, Phase 2 Bangalore and Guwahati, where design has commenced. Kaziranga, design is complete, approvals received. Construction will start in September of this year, which is in two

Page 9 of 15 months. So, we are waiting for the monsoons to get over, and then we start the work there. So, that's 116 rooms.

So, these are the four actual projects in the company where the work is ongoing. And the others were the bids, which we have given. I do not want to speak much about it because we are still waiting for the results to come up, but that's 500-odd rooms that we have bid for in two different locations.

Okay. So, 500 rooms additionally, which were basically mentioned in the presentation as potential future additions.

So, those are the 2,000 rooms that we have committed. If you do add these up, you will get the figure of 2,000 rooms. Sure, understood. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Next question is from the line of Prashant Biyani from Elara Securities. Please go ahead.

Yes. Thank you for the opportunity and congrats on good results. Tarun sir, for July you have mentioned on the ARR front, but how has occupancy been on a Y-o-Y basis in July?

Yes, hi. So, on a consolidated basis for the portfolio, we continue to see in July roughly around 2 to 3 percentage point improvement in occupancy Y-o-Y across the portfolio.

Okay. And sir, can you share the occupancy number for GHM and Andaz for Q1? So, for Q1 you said? Yes, sir.

Okay. So, Q1, we saw occupancy in Andaz at around 72% and Grand Hyatt was 67%.

Okay. And sir, I missed the net debt number that you shared in opening remarks, if you can repeat that, it will be great.

So, gross debt today is roughly around Rs. 740 odd crores. And we do have around Rs. 250 odd crores of cash. So, our net debt to EBITDA today if you were to see, forward EBITDA we are roughly around 1.3 times net bank debt to EBITDA.

Sir, by the end of this year, I mean, how do you expect the GHM occupancy to end up at?

We expect a fairly solid performance from Mumbai Grand Hyatt and Delhi as well. These are two very important markets. And if you see, we operate in the luxury space in the largest markets

Page 10 of 15 in India and offer a fairly good value proposition for our customers. And the market continues to grow from demand and ARR pull significantly. And high teens is what we expect these markets to kind of grow over the next few quarters, Delhi and Mumbai.

In addition to that, I would like to also drive your attention to what's happening in Ahmedabad.

Ahmedabad has been, as you know, we added 59 rooms to the inventory. And despite the addition, we are at 85% occupancy in Ahmedabad. And that's also very, very strong performer to the overall portfolio contribution.

And just to reiterate one more thing, we see a lot of hotels being signed up, and there's a lot of activity happening. But the thing is, hotels are still three to five years out. We still have the window where we will be able to capitalize on this. So your question of how the occupancy will pan out, there is no Fairmont opened up, there is nothing more in Bombay. Bombay is a very large city with good demand generators in and I think that occupancy will. Q1 is generally a weak quarter in general. And the unfortunate events sort of affected the market to that effect.

But everything is stable and very strong going forward. Sure. Thank you and all the best.

Thank you. Next question is from the line of Vaibhav Muley from Yes Securities. Please go ahead.

Yes. So my first question was on your Bangalore asset. So you have mentioned that the launch will happen by the end of the year or in Q4. So, what kind of stabilization period do you expect for this property? And what is the expectation in terms of contribution to revenue and EBITDA in FY ‘27?

So the stabilization period, I think the micro market in Bangalore is already developed. There are assets operating there. There is a hotel JW Marriott, which is on the airport, operating at Rs. 20,000 plus ARR. There is a Taj at the airport, again, Rs. 15,000 to Rs. 18,000 bracket. There is a mid-market hotel by the name of Moxy, which is closer to the city, about four kilometers from our site, operating at about Rs. 11,000 to Rs. 12,000. So I believe our ramp-up will be fast.

Within three to five months, we should be able to ramp up with the 235 boardrooms. In terms of numbers, I will let Tarun comment on that.

Thank you, Varun. So, Vaibhav, we have kind of given the recent renderings and photographs of Bangalore assets in the presentation. I hope you had a chance to go through them. So, we are hopeful that we will open the Phase-1 by the end of this fiscal itself. And as we get into FY ‘27, we will very quickly get into stabilization. As far as the number is concerned, we are targeting an EBITDA of roughly around Rs. 40 crores in the first year of operations from Phase-1.

All right. And regarding your ROFO asset addition, if you can provide a bit more color in terms of the progress as of now?

Page 11 of 15 So, as we said, there are different number of steps in that integration process. We continue to make progress on the eventual integration. And as Mr. Saraf said, we remain confident where we are today that we will look at integrating these assets in FY ‘27. And you will see the contribution in FY ‘27 Juniper consolidated numbers.

All right, sir. And just lastly on the cost front, we have seen a lower escalation in terms of cost compared to revenue in the current quarter. Is there any specific reason for the lower cost? And should we benchmark the cost going forward at the current levels?

So, look, I mean, this is a journey, as I said last year that there were a few things which impacted our margins last year. One of them was stabilization of Grand Hyatt. And now that we have that, we will see the margins continue to improve as we go forward in the next few quarters.

Importantly, you need to note that we believe and we are in a trend and a cycle where we are seeing ARRs continue to be robust and healthy. And as ARRs continue to grow, there will be high flow through for somebody like us and that will accrete to the overall margins.

As far as the current quarter is concerned, as I said, we have savings in energy costs because the share of green energy is increased to 30% in this quarter in terms of units. And also, there have been savings in admin in general and R&M costs. So, that has kind of led to an overall expansion in margins by 5 percentage points. And we believe for a company like us, the sustainable EBITDA margin should be in the region of 40-odd-percent. 44% you are saying? 40-odd-percent. I mean, I do not want to get into too much of specifics, but yes, we believe that 40s is the normative margin for a company like us.

Okay. Thank you so much for answering the question and all the best.

Thank you. Next question is from the line of Aman Goyal from Axis Securities. Please, go ahead.

Yes, thank you, sir. Thank you for the opportunity. Sir, my question is related to ROFO Assets.

Could you shed some light on the progress of due diligence and the transactional value approach?

Will it be a fully share swap deal or a mix of both cash and share?

Hi, Aman. I think over the past few quarters, we have kind of shared some details about it in the manner and structure in which it will come. Unfortunately, I am sure you would appreciate we are dealing with listed companies and there is a limited amount of information that I can share with you as of now.

But having said that, I can at least answer one thing to you that the diligence and evaluation obviously continues the progress on various steps that are required to get these assets are

Page 12 of 15 continuing. You may see some milestones when we announce in the near future. So, as the integration process would be non-cash, these would be share swaps. And that's the manner in which they will come in. As far as the value is concerned, I think we will disclose that when we get to that place.

Gentlemen, you have to understand a very important part that the other companies are also listed companies and they have their own regulatory framework that they must go through. So this is not something which is purely attributable to Juniper management to expedite or something. We are dealing with other listed companies and they also have to do their due diligence and also complete the regulatory framework. So, I can only say that it is progressing positively.

Okay, sir. Thank you. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Next question is from Raghav Malik from Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Yes. Thank you again. So just a few follow-ups. So, on a Capex front, is that target still maintained? I think you had mentioned Rs. 1,800 crores, Rs. 2,000 crores for the next three to four years during the analyst meet, so would that still be the same?

Yes. Hi, Raghav. Yes, we are on track to what we had shared in the analysts meet.

Okay. And just on Andaz, the occupancies for Andaz specifically, post this 5% sort of dip which was impacted by external events, is there some normalization or complete normalization in the last month or so? Sorry, if you have already answered this.

So yes, of course. If you look at Andaz occupancy in July, it's risen by 4 percentage points.

On a year-on-year basis, 4 percentage points?

Yes, 4 percentage points. So it's gone up to 78%, 79% in July. In the month of July, yes.

I mean, guys, these are really good occupancies for month of July, exceptional.

Yes, sir. I agree. And just one last, if I may. So there's this bifurcation of F&B contribution into venues and events. So, can you just sort of explain that? Because the events contribution seems much higher, the events growth seems much higher. So what is that exact bifurcation, what does that stand for, venues would be what?

I will let Tarun give you the bifurcation, but that is our focus. You will see the events as a component increase, because that's what we are focusing on. The large, big assets with 500-plus- odd rooms, that's what we do. We sell good groups at good healthy rates and that is where you are seeing the events contribution come in. In Grand Hyatt, Bombay, an additional ballroom was

Page 13 of 15 opened, that is also contributing. Same goes in Delhi, there's a second structure that has been created to get this additional business. In terms of the split, Tarun?

Yes. So Raghav, I will kind of caution you, there are quarterly spikes and changes which happened. But on an overall basis, venues would be around 40% and even 50%. So is it 40% and 60% approximately? That's right.

Okay. Understood. Thank you and all the best.

Thank you. Next question is from one of Nakul Doshi from ND Associates. Please go ahead.

Thank you for the opportunity. My first question was, if you could just share some insight into what influenced the service apartment business performance during the quarter?

There is no specific reason for that decline in business. I think the rates have gone up.

Occupancies have been flat, if I am not mistaken, a few points plus or minus. But I think in a location like Delhi, with Worldmark 3, 4, 5 opening up at the Aerocity, there is constant business coming from multinationals. We have reached out to a whole set of placement agencies, relocating agencies, who are moving people in. So I think business is very strong in Delhi. Same goes for Bombay.

Yes. So Nakul, just to give you some numbers, right? On ARRs, Grand Hyatt, Bombay in last that is Q1 FY ‘26, ARR grew 24% and Delhi residences 16%, right? And in July, on top of a higher base, Mumbai, as I said, grew 8% and Delhi 19%. And these are apartment numbers. So, one of the key things for us is, these are all long stay, more annuity like customer profiles here.

And one of the strategies for us was to increase the rates of the apartments in Delhi, for instance, to surpass the ARR of the rooms. And that is something that we have been able to achieve over the last year. And we believe that this is a trend which will continue to hold going forward. The demand for apartments in Mumbai and Delhi continues to be robust. And we will see higher and higher occupancy for apartments as we enter into and close new contracts with long stays.

Understood. And thanks for giving the detailed answer for comparing Delhi and Mumbai both.

I had one more question. It was related to the seasonality in conjunction with travel periods during the year or is the occupancy relatively stable compared to the Andaz and GHM?

So there used to be seasonality, which was very acute, I think, a couple of years ago. But post COVID, in particular, I think we have seen the first half and second half seasonality come down a little bit. But it is still second half is still stronger than the first half, while the acuteness of that differential between the first half and second half has reduced post COVID.

Page 14 of 15 Understood. And whether this difference has come down significantly or like the difference will keep on coming down? Or how is the trend you are assuming?

I think that, I mean, Q3 and Q4 will always be strong, right? There are what they call the wedding season, there is groups that travel, there is leisure business also that comes in from international.

So, those will definitely be stronger than this. Now, whether Q1, Q2 improves, I think over time with domestic travel increasing as a component, seasonality will decrease to a little extent, but it will still be there. Weddings are a big part of our business, as you have seen events we were just discussing, right, banqueting is a big chunk. So, they do not happen at that time, so occupancies will be a little low across our portfolio. But compared to past trends, I think it has improved and it should stay there.

Understood. Thank you for the detailed answer and all the best.

Thank you. Next question is from Vruddhi Vora from SAS Capital. Please go ahead.

Thank you for the opportunity. So my question is, like for the development options of further 500 keys, where we have said that we have submitted some bids, so I presume this would be a freehold or a lease land?

This would be leasehold land by the various governments that are auctioning the property.

Okay. And I also wanted to understand, if greenfield is a priority, rather than buying a distressed asset and then developing it like we did in Bangalore, would acquiring an existing asset reduce development time and give us better returns than a new greenfield development? What are your views on this?

Actually, developing brownfield is always, always desirable. There's no question about it.

There's no discussion required. Compared to greenfield, but how many brownfields are coming in the market? And the brownfields have to also come at the right values. So the question here is that we are in the business of creating value for ourselves, our companies, our stakeholders.

So, focus continues to be, our development team is scouting around and pursuing any and every brownfield that comes by in our market.

But it is not something that we can only count on that and expect a robust growth for your company. So, we have to look at both sides. And greenfield at this moment, where the government bodies are coming with leases which are almost like 50 years, 75 years, they are as good as anything that we can get. And then the whole process with a lease land, with a government auction land becomes much, much easier, transparent, and straightforward.

So, this is also very desirable. To buy a public private land, and then to start developing is much, much longer because land use has to be examined. All those other nitty-grities which are there, risk factors are there with private lands do not exist. That's why we participate in government bids. And we always hope that some good ones are coming up. So, kindly bear with us. As and

Page 15 of 15 when we get value creating bids, where we can participate, we will go for them. Brownfield continues to be our priority, no question about it.

Okay, got it. And I have one more question for your hotels coming in the northeast, Guwahati and Kaziranga that is, what we see the ARR and occupancy expectations we have? Will they be at par or an average rate or higher than the consolidated ARR?

See, you have to see every micro market has its own rate dynamics, which depends more on supply and demand, rather than national averages or anything. So, we are expecting Guwahati to be performing better or at par as Lucknow. And if you ask me in detail, I can ask Mr. Jaitly to give you what feasibility studies have been showing us. But Kaziranga again being a leisure hotel, I would expect the average room rates to be closer to Rs. 15,000 rather than Rs. 10,000.

Okay, understood. Thank you and all the best.

Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question for today. I will now hand the conference over to the management for closing comments.

Thank you. I would like to thank everybody for taking time out to join the call. If there are any follow-on questions, please reach out to us or the MUFG team to answer the questions and clarification. Thank you so much.

Thank you very much. On behalf of MUFG Intime Private Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us. And you may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.