In an exclusive conversation with NewsX for its special segment NewsX A-list, Abdullah Hussain, Director of Amaltas India Limited talks about the real estate sector, business insights and his journey so far.
Talking about the key challenges for the real estate sector foreseen in a post COVID world, Hussain said “Right now we are sitting at post lockdown stage and not post COVID stage. So, the lockdown has its own impact on the real estate industry which will take its own time to recover. Firstly, we’ll talk about the financial bodies involved in this, and the need of time, for the real estate sector. For example, I would say that the moratorium period given by the financial institutions was not enough, the real estate demanded for at least 12 months of moratorium period. And unfortunately, the loan restart restructurings did not take place as they were.”
Other than the financial front Hussain shares about how the pandemic affected the sector, “There is a shift of new launches, even in our company, we had five or six projects which were to be launched in FY 20 but now we have shifted them in second half of FY 21. So, this is a very deep issue. We are disposing off our ready to move in properties at very low prices to sustain and manage this crisis. It is breaking the whole cash flow cycle.”
Hussain also addresses the issue of labour shortage and recovery, “the labour and shortage of construction material in this sector has also affected it adversely. So, these all issues combined have adversely affected real estate which would further take a lot of time to recover.”
The Amaltas Group is Bhopal’s premier real estate developer and Hussain throws light on some of the biggest opportunities for this sector in a post COVID world too. “For a few real estate players that might be opportunity time for them because there are lands and very cheap rates and there are many different opportunities like the demand and supply ratio. I feel it will accelerate post-COVID-19 because there is a sense of having a shifting from a rented property to having your own home. So there is a feeling of being more secure and that feeling of safety, developing and growing and everyone’s mind, so that will accelerate the real estate sector.”
Hussain also elaborated on affordable housing as a plus point, “Affordable housing might boom because the middle-aged and middle-class people already have their own home. So, this might make the youngsters to come up with an idea of having their own home and investing in affordable housing, rather than spending on their lifestyles and apart from that We have also got some relaxation home loans and reduction of interest rates, so this will again boost the real estate sector as the overall player essential role to uplift this sector.”
Hussain talks about his own brand and their multi ventures along with key products, “It is a very diversified form of business which is commodity as well as FMCG business. We came up with the idea of this amongst us about multi ventures in 2017. Our vision was that the market was booming at that time and we were doing quite well in Madhya Pradesh. The basic idea was to be in every household, and deliver our quality in every household so we have a variety of products. We have diversified things in terms of categories where we have home care and personal care as well as healthcare.”
On a concluding note, Hussain talks about his company’s role during the lockdown and Modi’s Make in India vision, “Our CSR team has done a lot in terms of distributing masks, sanitisers and food packets. There was a very patriotic feeling starting this company at that time. PM Narendra Modi Ji had a vision of Make in India and one more idea of which we had in mind, was to compete with international players with our brands. We are taking that venture while expanding our name with quality and helping people by generating more and more employment, and being more patriotic.”