Chalet Hotels Ltd

NSE:CHALET

Earnings Call Transcript 2021-Q1

[Sanjay Sethi, MD, CEO & Director]

Thank you, Margaret. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I hope all of your -- you and your family members are all safe and continue to remain so. So my statement this quarter will primarily revolve around the efforts taken by Chalet Hotels to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic and how we have been navigating through this crisis. As the situation becomes clearer, we have been diligently opening areas of our business with our prime and continued focus being prudent cash flow management and the health and well-being of our guests and associates. The Indian economy has started opening up as the state government cautiously remove restrictions. We are seeing positive indications that the unlocking phase of markets and business is slowly gaining momentum as state governments do their best to strike a balance between lives and livelihood. According to the latest notification by the Director General of Civil Aviation, airlines have been allowed to deploy 45% of the pre-COVID capacity on domestic routes in August. While state-owned Air India has been operating flights across the world under the Vande Bharat Mission, private airlines, too, are now moving in the direction of starting long-haul flights. Under the framework of transport bubbles, flights from India to U.S., France, Germany, under the reciprocal arrangements, have begun and we see the same happening for U.K. now. Alongside the aviation sector, Indian hospitality industry, too, has seen new guidelines, allowing the opening of the business activities. Hotels have been allowed to open their doors to regular guests in all the four cities that our portfolio hotels are located in. Dine-in options are allowed in Hyderabad and Bengaluru while takeaway or delivery service of food and beverage is permitted in all cities. Globally accepted safety and hygiene protocols and SOPs have been followed at all our hotels. Digital solutions, such as electronic menus, contactless payment options, touchless checkouts, have now become the norm. Our hotels cater to a wide range of special purpose groups, namely seafarers, airline crew, rooms for companies seeking BCP options by housing their employees close to the offices and from the passengers from Vande Bharat flights. We also continue to cater to our brave COVID Warriors at our hotels. On the F&B front, we continue to strengthen our business through new revenue streams, such as takeaway and delivery services. Chalet Hotels have also introduced innovative F&B offerings, such as drive-through breakfast, Sunday brunches delivered to your homes, premium laundry and housekeeping services available to nonresident guests. In line with our strategy to improve employee productivity, we have been successful in bringing down the staff-to-room ratio to levels that are very close to what comparable hotels in the Western countries operate with. As on 30th of June 2020, our staff-to-room ratio stood at 0.88 versus 1.03 on 31 March of 2020. Payroll cost, which is one of the largest cost, operating costs, in our business, have also been reduced by 40% over the same quarter for the previous year and 37% compared to the quarter, January to March 2020. In our last call, we had indicated that through market share enhancement and cost management initiatives, we should be EBITDA positive by quarter 2 of this year. I'm happy to share that we've delivered this in Q1 with marginal EBITDA this quarter on a consolidated basis. The success of our market share story is indicated by the RevPAR premiums that we've been able to deliver at our operating hotels in Q1. So as per the STR reports, which compares us to a competitive set in our micro markets, our RevPAR index, and I'm going to share a few of those numbers with you, at the JW Marriott at Sahar in Mumbai in the quarter gone by was 207% against 113% last year for the same period. Similarly, at the Renaissance Hotel, it was 218% versus 87% last year. At the Westin in Hyderabad, the RevPAR index was 197% against 155% last year. And at the Marriott Whitefield, our RevPAR index was 503% versus 149% last year. Four Points and Novotel Pune had remained closed, in fact, Four Points for most of the quarter and Pune for all of the quarter during this period. Clearly, in all the operating hotels in the portfolio, we have grabbed a lion's share of the available business. Our hotel occupancies for the quarter stood at 24% on a base of full portfolio with Mumbai clocking 30%. If you were to take away the Vashi hotel and Pune hotel, which were shutdown during the quarter, our occupancies will be higher than this. So the Vashi hotel, for example, was shut down right until 15th of June and Pune hasn't opened at all during this period. In fact, Pune has only very recently, on 6th of August, opened this doors to welcome our guests back. The average daily rates or ADRs stood at INR 3,860, which were 52% lower than the same quarter in the previous year. An interesting number is that the RevPAR for us grew by 46% between April and June. So the 2-month gap between April and June saw a 46% increase in RevPAR, which clearly is -- and it's grown month-on-month, so it clearly is an indicator. We've seen a similar sort of a trend following through in July also. On the retail business front, our shopping mall in Bengaluru is now open for business. While the footfalls are slowly ramping up, we see a trend of higher spend per footfall at the mall. Commercial rentals remained unaffected, providing the much-needed respite to our revenues. On the project front, as we had shared last time, we have put most of the projects on hold, including the Hyderabad hotel. Hyderabad hotel could potentially have been commissioned by June of this year. But with the crisis, work couldn't go on. And given the demand scenario, right now, we've decided to defer the opening to the next calendar year. We, however, have some renovation going on at Renaissance in Mumbai. Basically, we restricted the renovation to the lobby area. And at the end of this renovation, the guests will have a far superior arrival and lobby experience when they check into our hotel. We are likely to complete this project by end of October. Currently, the lobby areas is the only the area that we're actually renovating. The two projects of office towers have right now been put on hold. We've decided to see what sort of tenant dynamics we see. And depending on that, we will proceed. We are -- idea is to lock in at least an anchor tenant at each of these sites before we start committing fresh capital into these projects. However, the feedback from our group's real estate team is that there should be more than reasonable demand for both these sites. Before I end, I must take a moment to thank all our colleagues across the hotels for a stellar contribution under very trying circumstances. Ladies and gentlemen, we at Chalet Hotels are now ready to welcome our guests and help them experience wonderful hospitality all over again. As I hand over to Rajeev to take you through the numbers, I also wish him all the best for his next professional endeavor and thank him for his contribution to the success of Chalet Hotels. Rajeev, over to you.

[Rajeev Newar]

Thank you. Thank you, Sanjay, and good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I hope everyone is staying safe and healthy. Before we start, let me offer the usual disclaimer on forward-looking statements and rounding-off of numbers during conversation. Further, when I refer to PY, it basically refers to the corresponding quarter of the previous year. Our presentation has been uploaded on the stock exchange and is available on our website as well. I hope you have had a chance to go through the same. Now moving on to the financial overview for the quarter ended June 30, 2020. See, the total income for the quarter was INR 589 million, which was 76% lower than the previous year. And as you would appreciate that the drop in the revenues was largely on account of the prevailing conditions and restrictions in place. However, the EBITDA was positive at INR 3 million. And this was largely on account of the various demand drivers that we saw as well as the stringent cost measures that we, as a company, we undertook. Revenue from hospitality was 53% of the overall revenue whereas retail and commercial contributed to 36%. The balance, 11%, came from other income. Within the hospitality segment, room revenue was the dominant segment, which accounted for 69% of the total hospitality income. F&B and other income accounted for 18% and 13%, respectively. The loss from the hospitality segment for the quarter stood at INR 145 million. However, what is encouraging to note is that the retail and commercial segment continue to be resilient during these times. The revenue from this segment was INR 213 million, which was higher as compared to the corresponding quarter of the previous year, which was INR 152 million. More importantly, the EBITDA from this segment also showed a sharp improvement from INR 74 million last year to INR 173 million in the current year. Within this, the revenue for ORB and the commercial tower was INR 205 million as compared to INR 80 million for the corresponding quarter of the previous year. The company, as I mentioned, had initiated several steps and initiatives to leverage and rationalize costs across all heads. Correspondingly, the operating costs were lower at almost 65% on a quarter-on-quarter basis. At Koramangala, which is the residential project, 92 flat owners continue to remain invested. No fresh subscription of the 0% nonconvertible, redeemable preference shares was sought from the promoters. And the subscription value continues to be at the level it was on March 31, 2020, which was INR 125 crores. During the quarter, the company accounted for a deferred tax credit of INR 246 million on account of the business losses. And there were also a reversal of provision of income tax relating to previous years, aggregating to INR 65 million. Furthermore, in the other income, we also accounted for INR 37 million as interest on account of these refunds from income tax. On the treasury front, the finance cost for the quarter was INR 400 million as compared to INR 357 million for the same quarter of the previous year. This was largely on account of the fact that we drew some of these loans in March as well as INR 250 million during the quarter to stay liquid during these times. Notwithstanding this fact, the gross borrowing stood at almost at around INR 1,800 crores and the net borrowing stood at approximately around INR 1,700 crores. I must mention here that the company has not availed the moratorium offered by the banks. As we speak, the company has undrawn limits of million INR 1,200 million for general corporate purposes and INR 1,140 million for capital spends. Further, the company also has cash equivalent of about INR 500 million. I must mention here that over the last 3 years that I have been with the group, this has been -- I'll cherish these memories. I think it has been a great journey, great team, great leadership here. The migration to Ind AS, GST, taking them through the -- participating in the IPO, the acquisitions, the merger, the demerger. And I think the time has come when the team has really risen to the occasion and are very capable of holding fort. And therefore, I have made a request to the Board to allow me to step down and explore opportunities. I continue to be a brand ambassador of Chalet. I continue to wish the company well. I thank Sanjay and the entire team, the team, which has -- and specifically also the team, which has worked with me all the 3 years, for all the support, without which many of these initiatives would not have been possible. I also take this opportunity to thank the Board for the guidance to me during this period. With this, we now open the floor to questions. Thank you.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] The first question is from the line of Aditya Bagul from Axis Capital.

[Aditya Bagul, Assistant Vice President of Midcaps]

Congratulations on a decent set of numbers in such troubled times. So two questions from my end. Sanjay, firstly to you, want to understand a little bit on how Marriott International is looking at the situation. We know that there have been several learnings and we were ahead of the curve because we got an understanding from them. So just some thoughts on how they are looking at the situation. When do they see recovery sort of happening in terms of the opportunity trend: one, globally; and two, specifically to India? That's question number one. Question number two is, Rajeev, to you. Really commendable effort in terms of cost control initiatives, employee-to-room number of 0.88 is really, really commendable. I just wanted to understand how much of this is structural and how much of this is transient because our occupancy is so low. So that's it.

[Sanjay Sethi, MD, CEO & Director]

Thank you, Aditya. Thank you for your question. So very quickly, we've been in touch with Marriott and Accor both to stay well informed on what's happening around the globe. And the signs of some of the countries, especially China, for example, are encouraging. We've seen occupancies in China in the month of July touch 60%. Rest of Asia has also done very well. And the ramp-up is pretty rapid. The three areas which have not done well in Asia right now is South Asia, so that includes India, Indonesia and Vietnam. Vietnam has started off very well and ramped up very well until the government came in and did a massive lockdown. In fact, 40,000-odd tourists had to be sent out overnight from there. But the rest of the countries across the continent have been doing very well. In West, they see pockets of success. Clearly, F&B is back in Europe, most of Europe, which has opened up its restaurants. And it's almost like close to normal in some of those places. The wine and dine experience is now continuing until early hours of the morning over Fridays and Saturdays. And clearly, there's a strong improvement there. Accor has given us similar feedback that China is doing very well. India, Vietnam and Indonesia are troubled. Thailand has seen a strong recovery. And in terms of a mix of segments, drivable distance resorts in India have seen some success. I've heard that Mussoorie is doing well on weekends but completely empty during the weekdays. They've seen Chandigarh pick up, Chandigarh hitting 35%, 36% occupancies. And Goa is seeing sporadic occupancies because of the requirement of the COVID-19 tests, et cetera, and certain restrictions on bars, shacks and swimming pools, et cetera. So leisure traffic is also, to a certain extent, hindered by the fact that whilst you can travel to some of these cities, the facilities are really not available. On the business traffic side, right now, most of the business across the country is what we call special purpose groups. So these are project-based businesses which have to kickstart projects. These are long stays who are coming in and staying with us. These are people who need to spend some time in hotels or cities before they start work because of the Indian government requires them to do so once they enter India, so all of that business. However, I would give you some indicators. So we have in our portfolio, Four Point Sheraton in Vashi, which is a 152-room hotel. So we are allowed -- because of the state regulations here, we are allowed 33% capacity to be occupied on a daily basis. And we hit that 33%, which is 50 rooms per day, literally in the first 3 or 4 days. And we stayed there after that right up to today. And these are largely occupants -- the accounts there are largely two large accounts with the travelers staying there for long stays to complete projects. On the overall view on when things will open in India, I really don't see FIT, business travel sort of picking up until at least post Diwali. I think that's what I shared in the last call also. But I don't think we'll hit normal numbers until probably third quarter next year. So whilst it will ramp up, it will be a slow ramp-up, unless a vaccine is found. I guess today's story from Russia, and if it is authentic, is extremely positive. I also believe that the memory on this front will be very short-lived once the vaccine is out, once everyone has got inoculated, it will be life back to normal in most cases. So that's my view on what things are going to happen. In terms of -- you asked Rajeev, and I'll come pitch in with a little bit before Rajeev comes on, whether it's structural or ad hoc right now, most of the costs, especially on the fixed cost side, are now good for forever for us. As far as we are concerned, we've been able to drive in further efficiencies into our productivity levels for good. So whilst we'll be -- and I guess, this is still work in progress on this test. So we're going to actually -- we are targeting a 0.75 room-to-people ratio. And whilst we were at 0.88 in the end of June, end of July, we've achieved 0.82 already. At 0.75, we should be good for the next year or so. This may creep up to maybe 0.8, 0.85 at some point of time. But we're going to be way below where we used to operate normally at. This is that structure largely.

[Aditya Bagul, Assistant Vice President of Midcaps]

Yes. Just one question on that. All of this is done without -- while there might be some relaxations at the moment, there might be very stringent caveats put by these brands, right? So if you're operating a JW Marriott, you require an x number of employees per room. Is that something...

[Sanjay Sethi, MD, CEO & Director]

No. So as I said earlier in my opening statement, the numbers are now coming close to what the hotels in the West operate at, similarly branded hotels. So therefore, we actually in India, over the last 20 years, had got spoiled for choice in terms of employees because labor cost in India has been very cheap at one point of time. That's not the case anymore. Now this pandemic become -- gives us an opportunity to reset that situation and get these productivity levels and efficiency levels into our systems for good forever.

[Aditya Bagul, Assistant Vice President of Midcaps]

Perfect. That's helpful.

[Sanjay Sethi, MD, CEO & Director]

Anything else, Rajeev, you want to add?

[Rajeev Newar]

No, thanks, Aditya. I think Sanjay has already answered that. And thanks for all the words of encouragement. Thank you so much.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Next question is from the line of Amandeep Singh from AMBIT Capital.

[Amandeep Singh]

Sir, in your investor presentation, Slide 15, you have mentioned that your current debt to FY '21 EBITDA is 23.6x. So does this imply that you are expecting an EBITDA of more than INR 700 million? And if that's the case, what will drive this improvement in profitability?

[Rajeev Newar]

So this ratio is something which I think we should look at it in light of what the current situation is as an extrapolated ratio. I think the ratio that is more relevant for us is the ratio that we achieved in FY '20. And because this is -- this year is not really a standard year. It's an extraordinary year. And therefore, I would recommend that, that ratio is there. But I think the ratio, which we achieved in FY '20, was close to about 4.9. And we obviously, over a period of time, we obviously believe that, that should come down with period of time.

[Sanjay Sethi, MD, CEO & Director]

May I comment? I just want to add to that. Amandeep, thank you for your question. So look, we at Chalet have the benefit of a diversified portfolio. And we've always spoken about it as a strength within the portfolio. The fact that we have rental assets, especially the office assets, which continue to be rent-yielding without any compromise on the rental returns, gives us a lot of comfort. And as we stabilize hotel business, and especially as hotels open out in the subsequent quarters and F&B opens out, we do expect revenues to increase. So whilst I will not agree or disagree with the number that we show up on the EBITDA, but I mean, it's there to calculate. But yes, we are hopeful that we'll do that even better.

[Amandeep Singh]

Sure, sir, that's helpful. Sir, you mentioned earlier that alternative revenue streams, including SPGs, seafarer groups, et cetera. So can you help us understand how much the revenue accretion to occupancies and correspondingly room rentals are you expecting from these streams?

[Sanjay Sethi, MD, CEO & Director]

So we would not like to give any forward-looking numbers for now. See, Amandeep, we are exploring all opportunities. And the idea is to sweat the asset. And as for some period of time, we may not be able to occupy some of the key real estate areas in our hotels, we'd like to use them to alternate use and see how we can sweat the asset better. So we are exploring the markets to see what we can get in terms of maybe short-term office rentals or alternate forms of office, for example, you have the hot desking options and stuff like that. We're exploring that. We've also had some interest from a couple of large brands of F&B wanting to come in and take up some space in hotels that I think they are driven by the fact that hotels are considered to be safer places to be in. And therefore, from that perspective, for them to locate themselves in that hotel gives a communication of health, safety, hygiene and comfort. But I won't -- we don't have a number as yet to share with you.

[Amandeep Singh]

Sure, sir. And sir, are you witnessing any permanent reduction in upcoming supplies in any of your key markets, given COVID-induced funding challenges for many developers? Also any closure of hotels as well as small, in nearby vicinity of your existing portfolio?

[Sanjay Sethi, MD, CEO & Director]

I wouldn't like to hazard a guess on closure. Because I don't know what the condition of the people and the owners are. But yes, we've heard that there's a lot of stress in the market. And that stress could force some of the owners to convert this into alternate use or maybe exit those investments. On the new supply, yes, I think there is a tremendous slowdown that's going to happen. As we shared with you, we ourselves have delayed some of the projects, right? And to build a hotel from scratch to opening can take you anywhere between 3 -- 2.5, 3 years right up to 7 years, depending on how approvals come through and how large the project is. So for the next 5 to 6 years, we see a strong slowdown in the supply side. It was anyway expected to be only 4.5%, 5% year-on-year for the next 4, 5 years. And that's going to get further muted as years -- in the next few years. So what will happen is when business returns to normal, the good part will be that the supply side would be very weak. And therefore, we expect a significantly better performance by hotels that make it through the crisis.

[Amandeep Singh]

Sir, that's helpful. And sir, lastly, how are the rental negotiation with your retail tenants panning out? Have you seen any store closure? Or how are the early footfall and consumption trends in your existing mall asset?

[Sanjay Sethi, MD, CEO & Director]

So there are conversations that are going on. There is some people who express the inability to continue, limited right now in numbers. There are some people who have requested for rent relief. And I think we will have to work in partnership with them to see what remains a win-win situation. We have been able to cut down CAM costs as physical costs. So therefore, we're able to pass on that benefit to some of the tenants. But that's cost-to-cost, where we've been able to reduce them. So they get the benefit of that. Some of them are shut down for longer periods of time. Some of them are operating with takeaways and deliveries. So there'll be different conversations with different tenants. Overall, there will be some impact. We are looking at alternate options. And we will come back to you shortly with a plan on that front.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] The next question is from the line of Nihal Jham from Edelweiss.

[Nihal Mahesh Jham, Research Analyst]

Sir, I just had one question. When you were giving your performance comparison to players for all the four properties which are open, was that specifically for the last month or it was for Q1?

[Sanjay Sethi, MD, CEO & Director]

Nihal, this is Sanjay. So this is for Q1. So this is 3 running months, April to June. So I must clarify that this is as per the comp set that are set up for each of these hotels in agreement with STR, where there are restrictions that you can't have more than similarly branded hotels of more than 30% or 40%. So you have to have alternate hotels. You have to be within your segment of hotel category, you have to be within your micro market and all of that together. And within that concept, these are the numbers that I shared with you a little earlier. But they were for 3 months.

[Nihal Mahesh Jham, Research Analyst]

Yes. So where I was coming from is there was anyway a premium in most of the properties, as you mentioned last year's figures. And that has only increased for Q1 of this year. And considering that most of the guest profile was similar in terms of Vande Bharat or BCP and at least I think the rates in case of Vande Bharat were regulated. So if you could just give a little color on how you managed to increase this differential, I mean, that would be very interesting for me from my side.

[Sanjay Sethi, MD, CEO & Director]

So Nihal, it's all about grabbing the lion's market share. And I did say that in the opening statement, and I think we were very aggressive right from day 1. We did have a sort of a head start from our brand partners that what had happened in China and what could potentially be streams of revenue for us as this shuts down. I think I must say that Marriott has done a wonderful job. Novotel was closed, so they didn't have the opportunity to present to us. But all the other Marriott hotels did a fabulous job of grabbing the right market share. It's very important also that we do not take on any COVID-positive guests. Neither did we allow any of our hotels to be taken up by the government for COVID-positive guests. There were some hotels that were required by the government. So we were able to manage that and yet get enough business, whether it was the COVID Warriors, whether it was the Vande Bharat flight people, whether it was the BCP programs, whether it was other long-stay guests who were staying with us. We've also done it very smartly, just to share with you because this is something that we're very proud of, that at Renaissance, for example, we've got three towers, one, the Marriott Executive Apartments and the two towers of the Renaissance hotel. So whilst more than 400 doctors have been staying with us for roughly around 3.5 to 4 months, and they're dwindling now, they're coming down slightly now, they were restricted to one tower. So we did not that way put any of our other guests or employees at risk and that tower services were outsourced, whether it was cleaning, F&B services, et cetera, were outsourced to an agency. And in the Marriott Executive Apartments, we sent every other business into that tower, which had 170 rooms. Similarly at Sahar, whilst we did not take on any positive guests, we had a few government -- there were just 4 or 5 rooms that were occupied by the -- from the government BMC requirement. But we have a lot of Vande Bharat travelers over there because of the proximity to the airport. In addition to that, we had a lot of long-stay guests, and we've got a lot of crew. And right now, it's largely cargo crew. We've had a good -- a fabulous turnaround on one of the large global crews. And when they start operating, which should be in the next couple of weeks or so, we've been able to pull that group from another competitor and bring them -- a crew from another competitor and bring them in, which again becomes base occupancy for us for the next 2 years.

[Nihal Mahesh Jham, Research Analyst]

Sure. So last one, Sanjay, would it be right to say that the occupancy was the main differential in the increase in the premium compared to your peer set?

[Sanjay Sethi, MD, CEO & Director]

Yes. I think occupancy and ADR, I think, it's a combination of both. The fact that we delivered an ADR of INR 3,800 whilst the doctors were giving us an ADR for most of the quarter at INR 2,000 means that we did get a better ADR from other segments, and we were able to balance this out. And this is without subsidizing any of the doctors' room through any other source.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] The next question is from the line of Sumant Kumar from Motilal Oswal.

[Sumant Kumar, Research Analyst]

Yes. So my question is regarding the wedding booking. So can you discuss more about how the trend and booking for the upcoming wedding season?

[Sanjay Sethi, MD, CEO & Director]

Thank you, Sumant, for the question. That's been one pleasant surprise along the way. We've had a surge of weddings in Hyderabad and Bengaluru, and more so in Hyderabad than Bengaluru. We've seen Pune, we just opened 5 days back, already to a couple of weddings. So really, this segment is doing well. And our team has been successful in picking up the weddings. So just to give you a number, I think we've done close to 10 weddings or so, so far. And we have a lot more bookings already with us. The Hyderabad hotel has witnessed more weddings than it has done in a whole year in the past. So clearly, a positive trend. But as you know, there are restrictions on the number of guests that are allowed for the wedding. So from that perspective, the revenues haven't been as large as they used to be. And sorry, just give me a moment. And so Rajeev has shared with me that we have got another 8 to 10 in the pipeline over the next few weeks itself. So clearly, there's a lot of demand for the wedding. And one thing I want to highlight here, Sumant, is that we see a strong shift of readings from stand-alone banquet halls and lawns to the organized sector of hospitality and hotels, especially for the 5-star segment, just because you don't want the food catered by stand-alone caterers anymore.

[Sumant Kumar, Research Analyst]

Okay. And how is the online booking trend?

[Sanjay Sethi, MD, CEO & Director]

So online booking trends, Sumant, is not very strong right now. In fact, more than 90% of the business that we've done in the quarter came out of this, what you call, direct bookings to hotels. And online hasn't picked up too much. We've seen some traction happening on some staycations but not very strong right now. And most of the business, hence, has been picked up by the sales and marketing team as against the distribution network.

[Operator]

The next question is from the line of Abhinav Rao Nadipally from IndiaFirst Life Insurance.

[Abhinav Rao Nadipally]

Sir, my question is regarding the collections or receivables. How do you see it? Like because since our mix has changed now that you are dealing with municipal authorities and even the cash flow of the airlines is shaky. So how do you see that? And what is the strategy going forward?

[Sanjay Sethi, MD, CEO & Director]

So Abhinav, firstly, let me give you an overview. Between March and July, we've been able to collect INR 118 crore of receivables. Now that, in itself, is a very large number. Our revenues for this period was some INR 30-odd crores. And the collection has been INR 118 crores. BMC -- the bills, we managed to get us registered as vendors in BMC very early in the cycle. The bills have been accepted, the process is on. We do expect the first lot release to happen in the next week or so.

[Abhinav Rao Nadipally]

Okay. And secondly, sir, on the 9th Slide, you have given the details of ADR and occupancy levels. Despite Mumbai having a higher occupancy kind of number, the ADRs are very low, compared to other cities.

[Sanjay Sethi, MD, CEO & Director]

Yes. Abhinav, it's very obvious. So Mumbai is the only city as far as our portfolio is concerned that we have the doctors stay with us. And the doctors' ADR was INR 2,000. So therefore, the -- whilst we got the doctors' occupancy, they dragged down the average room rate for us at almost about 275 to 280 rooms a day, 400 doctors staying with us for most of the quarter.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] The next question is from the line of Vikas Ahuja from Antique Stockbroking.

[Vikas Ahuja, Research Analyst]

I just have one bookkeeping question. In terms of the liquidity, how much is the debt payment as for this fiscal year and the next, FY '22? I mean, that number would be pretty helpful.

[Rajeev Newar]

Vikas, this is Rajeev here. So for the year, for the remaining 3 quarters, the debt that remains to be paid is about INR 171-odd crores and the interest obligation is roughly in the range of INR 124 crores. So roughly, between the debt obligation is about INR 300-odd crores. And as I mentioned to you that there are three elements: a is the line of credit that we have; b is the working capital opportunities that we have because we have certain working capital opportunities that have been identified, which will also result in some reasonable liquidity; and the third is the operating cash flow. A combination of these three should largely see us managing the debt obligation for the current year, which is about INR 300-odd crores. Now if you were to look at the following years, just to give you a sense that for FY '22, the loan repayment is in the range of about INR 250 crores, which is also there in our annual report. And the interest would be about INR 200-odd crores.

[Operator]

Thank you. As there are no further questions from the participants, I now hand the conference over to Mr. Sanjay Sethi for closing comments.

[Sanjay Sethi, MD, CEO & Director]

Thank you. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your time. We -- I just want to sort of close the call with a note of cautious optimism. You've got to understand that until now, we haven't had a full opening-up. In fact, it has been extremely sporadic. And we believe that sooner than later, there will be a full opening-up in India, too. And when that happens, we will have an opportunity of a large step-up. And I believe that there will be two types of step-ups, one, as we find the general medical condition of the community in India improving and proper care being given to COVID-positive cases. The second step-up, which will be the larger step-up, is when there is an availability of certified vaccine available and the ability for people to get vaccinated and then travel fearlessly across the borders. We thank you for your time, do stay well, stay safe, and look forward to catching up with you soon.

[Rajeev Newar]

Thank you.