Real Estate Gurgaon

Hines India Real Estate, a wholly owned subsidiary of American realty giant Hines, has set up a $300 million fund dedicated for projects in India.

“We have an investment fund in India with $300 million of equity which should sponsor projects up to a billion dollars in total value,” said Yash Gupta, joint managing director, Hines India.

Hines is one of the largest real estate developers in the world. It is a privately-held firm with a presence in over 96 cities across the globe. Its portfolio consists of around 950 properties and the firm controls assets valued at approximately $16 billion.

The Indian office was opened last March and the firm has committed to only one project so far – a city centre spread over 15 acres in Gurgaon in equal partnership with DLF.

This complex will comprise a 30-storey high office tower, retail, restaurant and entertainment venues, a hotel. To attract crowds and make it the “Connaught Place” of Gurgaon, this city centre with also have landscaped exterior and interior public spaces.

“We are more interested in quality than quantity. Hines India will develop iconic landmarks in the country,” said Gupta.

The company has decided to stick to just the metros, as it believes this is where the true demand for quality exists.

It is keen to develop projects in the National Capital Region, Mumbai and Bangalore. “Our presence in Chennai, Hyderabad and Kolkata will be reactive to a good opportunity coming up,” said Gupta.

The company is looking to develop high-end office and residential space, integrated townships and IT/ ITeS special economic zones.

Source : Business Standard

THE government is planning to build 6-7 new IT townships, called knowledge townships, close to major urban centres and international airports. The residential townships will be based on the walk-to-work concept. This means the professionals working there will be encouraged to live close to the workplace.

The companies setting up units in the townships may be extended tax sops under either the software technology park (STP) or special economic zone (SEZ) scheme. Each township would have a minimum 10-hectare built-up area to make it compliant with FDI rules relating to investment in real estate. Each township is likely to entail an investment of Rs 500-650 crore, depending on the area.

A committee comprising members from the PMO, ministry of IT & telecom, urban development, civil aviation, Dipp along with Nasscom has identified several areas for setting up the knowledge hubs.

Sources in the committee said that these proposed townships will be extension of satellite towns like Gurgaon (to be called Gurgaon Plus). Similarly the township near Mohali will be called Mohali Plus. The first of these new townships is expected to come up by 2012 and the rest by 2015.

While manufacturing will be discouraged, services like IT and BPO will be encouraged in these units. “Nobody will like to live 100 ft away from a chemical plant but a software or BPO company will be welcome,” said a committee member.

Many domestic and foreign real estate players have expressed interest in owning land and build such townships.
“We want each township to be FDI compliant so that they can attract foreign expertise,” a senior DIPP official said. Every township would be a special purpose vehicle where states and developers would have stakes.

Urban development secretary M Ramachandran said that his ministry would advise the committee on facilities like water, electricity, drainage and other civic facilities. “We will also help in developing the structures,” he said.
“The townships may also have an IIT/IIM or such academic institutions to build an ecosystem. For tax sops, we are pushing for extension of STP scheme else the companies can also opt for SEZ status,” said Nasscom president Kiran Karnik. The townships will come complete with educational, recreational/amusement and healthcare infrastructure.

“The basic reason for proposing such townships is the existing saturation in real estate and infrastructure amongst existing IT hubs,” Mr Karnik added.

Gurgaon real estate rentals have shot up meteorically in the recent past while Bangalore doesn’t have any real estate. Hotel rentals in Bangalore are amongst the highest in the world.

Currently, Mohali, Mysore, Noida and Gurgaon have come up as satellite townships to major state capitals, most of which have international airports.

Tax breaks might be crucial for the proposed townships. SEZs offer a five-year 100% tax exemption with two subsequent five-year exemptions of 70% and 50% to units.

Source : The Economic Times

When the Indian government in a tie-up with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) launched the Overseas Indian Facilitation Centre (OIFC) a little while back, it had probably not bargained for the nature of the response it got.

If OIFC Chief Executive Harish Kirpal of the CII is to be believed, overseas Indians are flooding the OIFC’s mailboxes with investment related queries and not complaints or distress calls.

Well, one could argue that the primary objective of the centre was to lead Indian diaspora up the investment avenue, but one would certainly not have expected real estate to be the area of greatest interest. At least, not one in which NRIs would want OIFC help. But that’s exactly what’s happened.

“We are getting a lot of queries from overseas Indians about investing in property in India,” Kirpal was quoted by The Times of India as having said recently.

OIFC, a one-stop shop to help overseas Indians invest in India, was launched by the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs (MOIA) on May 28. The CII is the private sector partner and host institution of this not-for-profit trust.

Speaking about the response received by the centre since it was launched, Kirpal said going by the initial trend, real estate tops the list in terms of interest shown by overseas Indians while stock market investments come second.

With the surging demand for investment in real estate from domestic and overseas investors, real estate investment trusts when operational in India would enable a larger number of players to participate in investment grade buildings. These are currently worth $ 83 bn in India.

Currently, Indian REITs are entering the Singapore market. Ascendas India, the Business Park developer has already applied to the Monetary Authority of Singapore to raise $357m to invest in integrated real estate projects in India.

DLF and Unitech are also deliberating on this option. While Unitech is going in for an overseas listing, DLF Assets has kept its options open for an Indian listing if the trusts are allowed to operate in the next 12 months.

Bangalore’s Real Estate Bank International (REBI) has ambitious plans to reach out to overseas markets with an investment of Rs. 250 m, reports NRI Realty News.

Offices in Sri Lanka, US, UAE, Singapore, Malaysia and Australia will enable real estate services to reach out to non-resident Indians, while REBI’s domestic network will be expanded to 3000 franchises over the next three years.

Pearl Global is also venturing into real estate, as it ties up with Ansal Properties to develop 9.26 acres of commercial land in Gurgaon.

Earlier this month, the Bhoruka Group from Bangalore announced its intention to diversify from its existing power generation business to develop a premium residential project in south Mumbai. The defunct Mukesh Textile Mill property, covering 10 acres will be the site of the new project. The company will also construct an IT Park on 34 acres in Whitefield, Bangalore.

Kolkata based Bengal Shrachi Housing Development in a joint venture with two NRIs has announced the launch of a housing complex, Rosedale Garden, specially designed for non-resident Indians (NRIs). Tapping the desire for fully furnished ready-to-move in apartments for NRIs, the joint venture has invested Rs3bn in this mega project.

Premier realty firm Parsvnath Developers Ltd is set to develop their existing land bank over the next five years by investing over $4 bn. Launching over 100 real estate projects in all its segments, they aim at developing their saleable land bank of 153m sq feet.

They have six projects lined up for Delhi metro as well. Speaking in terms of growth, the company had reported a profit of Rs 2.92 bn in the financial year 2006-07 at an annual growth rate of 110 per cent.

The real estate sector has recorded commendable profit margins, evident from the profits posted by major real estate developing giants in the first quarter. The first quarter was beneficial for almost all real estate developers. Parsvnath Developers posted a record net profit of 179.56 per cent at Rs 1.02 bn against its previous Rs 365.5 m.

Unitech on the other hand has been registering a consistent growth of 8.6 per cent for the last four years. Ansal Properties and Infrastructure Ltd. (Ansal API) reported a net profit of 16 per cent.

Indian realty is growing at 30 per cent, particularly in Tier II and Tier III cities. The $15 bn realty market is expected to reach $ 90 bn within the next eight years. Chandigarh, Gurgaon, Vizag, Coimbatore, Kochi, Jaipur and Nagpur are some Tier II cities witnessing unprecedented boom.

Research has it that realty can give an average return of eight per cent. Realty prices are doubling in some Tier I cities like Bombay, Chennai, Bangalore etc. Residential prices have gone over Rs 5,000 per sq feet and commercial prices are over Rs 10,000 in Tier I cities.

Source://thepeninsulaqatar.com