Brazilian homebuilder Gafisa SA plans to rein in new projects and expenses next year as it seeks to cut debt and boost profitability, executives said on Wednesday.Its Gafisa unit, which builds mid-priced homes, will launch between 1.5 billion reais ($647 million) and 1.7 billion reais worth of new projects next year, while its Tenda unit, aimed at low-income buyers, will begin between 600 million reais and 800 million reais in projects. The estimates are down from about 2.7 billion reais in total this year, executives said at an investor event on Wednesday.Gafisa shares rose nearly 5 percent to 3.67 reais in early afternoon trading.Gafisa embarked on a turnaround strategy in October 2011 after a rapid expansion into untried markets led to huge cost overruns, sales cancellations and big quarterly losses. Since then, the company has reduced expenditures and temporarily halted launches in the Tenda unit so it could focus on selling off unprofitable inventory.
Gafisa SA is a Brazil-based company engaged in the homebuilding and real estate operations. Shares of GFA traded higher by 4.61% or $0.14/share to $3.18. In the past year, the shares have traded as low as $2.22 and as high as $5.24. On average, 1635880 shares of GFA exchange hands on a given day and today's volume is recorded at 778462.
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