Real estate is a rare sector in India that has attracted more than a billion dollars in private equity money year after year for the past decade. There is a huge demand-supply gap in the residential market while a fast-growing economy has created a tailwind for commercial and industrial property development, thereby making a case for an investment opportunity.
In 2019, for the third consecutive year, total private capital funding (equity and debt) in real estate sector topped the $4 billion mark, according to VCCEdge. Although the year was marginally softer both in terms of number of transactions and aggregate deal value, compared to 2018, it remained a key contributor to private capital flow in the country.
While a slew of policy initiatives over the past few years have infused a fresh hope; be it the thrust on providing housing for all by 2022 and supporting measures to boost affordable housing, opening a window for new fundraising and boosting liquidity in the system with Real Estate Investment Trusts (REIT), strengthening the governance process with the Real Estate Regulatory Authority, the sector has clearly been under focus.
Yet, several challenges remain. Residential realty sector is still saddled with oversupply as price points are not matching the demand spectrum. Commercial office space remains the prime driver of investments. The COVID-19 pandemic poses its own set of challenges.
To map out the investment and business opportunity in the sector, deliberate on the regulatory norms and what needs to be done, and discuss the emerging themes in the sector, VCCircle is organising its second edition of the Real Estate Investment Summit.
This edition has been reimagined to align ourselves to a post-COVID19 world, by leveraging the power of technology and digital connectedness.
By Jaideep Mehta, CEO, Mosaic Digital
Swet Sarika, Assistant Editor, VCCircle in conversation with Rohan Sikri, Senior Partner, The Xander Group Inc.
How do investment returns vary across debt and equity side of real estate as an asset class? Are developers leaning towards one of two modes to raise capital? How do investors weigh future investment canvas between the two types of investment options?
Speakers:
Amit Goenka, Managing Director & CEO, NiFCO
Puneet Bhatia, Sr. Director – Real Estate, ICICI Venture
Ambar Maheshwari, CEO - Indiabulls Private Equity, Indiabulls Asset Management
Moderator: Beena Parmar, Special Correspondent, VCCircle
Swet Sarika, Assistant Editor, VCCircle in conversation with Mike Holland, CEO – Commercial Real Estate, Embassy Office Parks
The residential side of the house has been saddled with demand supply mismatch with respect to pricing and even as commercial space as a business segment has been robust, new segments are emerging. Warehousing for one is a rising star and demand for computing power is leading analysts to pick data centres linked realty asset as an exotic segment for the future. Is this opportunity set expected to change in the short term?
Speakers:
Malayappan Murali, Chairman & MD, Shriram Properties
Abhijit Malkani, Co-CEO & Country Head, ESR India
Anshul Singhal, MD, Welspun One Logistics Parks
Moderator: Swet Sarika, Assistant Editor, VCCircle
The sunshine sectors within real estate- co-working, shared-living, student housing, senior living- have their own business challenges. How are these emerging themes playing out and which segments appear more scalable with a path to profitability? How are realtors adopting new age technologies?
Speakers:
Deepak Anand, Co-founder & CEO, Housr
Suresh Rangarajan, Founder & CEO, Colive
Abhishek Goenka, CEO, CoWrks
Moderator: Narinder Kapur, Correspondent, VCCircle
An alumnus of Harvard Business School, Mr Murali is the Chairman and Managing Director of Shriram Properties, and also the Non Executive Chairman of Shriram Group. As a pre-eminent property developer, Murali delivers quality homes and commercial spaces to his trusting customers, rewarding careers to his industrious employees and phenomenal returns to the various stakeholders in his business. His objective is to make the nation’s Housing for All mission a reality.
Mr. Murali, at the age of 28, in 1997 took over the reins of Shriram Properties. He has been instrumental in attracting FDI and Non-FDI investments of nearly USD 435 million from majors like Walton Street Capital, Starwood Capital Group, TPG Capital, TATA opportunities fund, Sun Apollo, ICICI Prudential, ASK, Motilal Oswal and Amplus. Trust, Transparency, and credibility are his watchwords.
In May 2017 Shriram Properties had a USD 350 million deal with Xander group - making it the largest private equity deal in the real estate space. Mr. Murali was singularly instrumental for this big deal.
Mr. Murali is also the Non-Executive Chairman of Shriram Group managing the non financial services of the group like Infrastructure, Project Development, Engineering Services, Power Generation, Information Technology, real estate Development and more recently the aerospace business.
Mr. Murali has institutionalized practices that make Shriram Properties the most trusted, honest and progressive corporate in Indian real estate industry. The company operates across verticals such as SEZs, integrated townships, IT parks, retail space, hospitality, senior-citizen homes as well as leisure home.
A dynamic and successful entrepreneur- Deepak Anand is the brain behind introducing the original co-living concept in India- Housr. As cities flourish, spaces vanish. But living in cities shouldn't always mean crunched spaces and a lower standard of living. Deepak recognized this problem and realized it could be solved via a shared economy model. Urban clusters have a high number of migrant population using rented accommodations. India, as the fastest growing economy in the world, has grabbed the attention of the world and is today on the radar of global investors, multi-national corporations, tourists, economists and more.
Moreover, India has a high population of millennials well-versed with using sharing economy on a day-to-day basis, it lays a solid ground for introducing co-living via Housr in the truest sense. Housr’s vision is to truly disrupt the way millennials live by providing high quality co-living spaces which makes their lives easier, more convenient, fulfilling and memorable.
Before founding Housr, Deepak was the Founder of Smartlease and has an extensive experience in the real estate industry. In the past, he has worked in leadership roles at Real Estate Private Equity Funds, HT Media and HSBC. Deepak is an INSEAD Alumnus and a graduate from Delhi University.
Ambar looks after the Asset Management business at Indiabulls. A Chartered Accountant, Ambar brings with him substantial deal-making and structuring experience in the Real Estate sector. Prior to joining Indiabulls AMC, Ambar was associated with JLL as Managing Director, where he successfully ran five businesses including Corporate Finance, Education, Healthcare and Social Housing, Special Development Initiatives and Infrastructure. He had worked with DTZ for over five years profitably leading the Investment Advisory business for India which included Capital Raising, Valuations and Strategic Consulting Services. Additionally, the firm’s presence in West India for other service lines that included Commercial Leasing, Project Management and Research were set-up under Ambar’s leadership. With an overall experience of over 20 years in India and Australia, Ambar has been focusing on the Real Estate sector for the last 10 years. His non real estate stints as an investment banker included IL&FS where he set up the Fee Based Investment Banking business for India, Ambit Corporate Finance and KPMG.
Amit Goenka is the Founder MD & CEO of Nisus Finance, a premier alternative asset manager with AUM of INR 600 cr. Amit was also the Founder, MD & CEO of Essel Finance, part of the USD 7 bn ZEE Group, managing financial services and real estate funds, both domestic and offshore. Amit has held senior roles at Knight Frank across various verticals, including as CEO of a domestic rental yield fund. He has also served in senior capacities with Alghanim and Adeem Group in the Middle East besides Ernst & Young and Aditya Birla Group in India.
Amit is one of India’s foremost thought leaders on real estate, known for his views on the developments in affordable housing, taxation, regulatory, statutory and structural frameworks. He is dedicating his second fund corpus of about INR 500 crores towards main stream mid-income and affordable housing opportunities. He has chaired conferences in association with NAREDCO, PwC, FICCI, IMC and APREA on subjects like Banking, Private Equity, REITs, Union Budget, RERA etc. Amit brings 20 years of top tier multinational experience in Banking, Direct Investments and Strategy and has been responsible for over USD 7 billion of transactions worldwide. He holds a BE, MBA, MRICS and CCF.
Puneet Bhatia is Senior Director at ICICI Venture and has 25 years of diversified experience spread across Investment Banking, Private Equity, Lending and Structured Finance in Indian real estate. Prior to joining ICICI Venture he was Director and Head Investments at Mirae Global Investments heading all Real Estate Investment initiatives of the Group in India.
His association with the Real Estate Industry dates back from 1994, the beginning of organized real estate Investment Banking, Consulting and Agency business in India. As one of early stage real estate professional, he played a pivotal role in shaping markets, providing Agency services, working in International Property Consulting organisations and largest private sector Bank as well as pioneering investment in Private Equity/Mezzanine finance (First FDI player to do Mezzanine Finance) . In India, he has been amongst key first set of employee in IPCs like Colliers, JLL, Property Services Group in ICICI Bank, Wells Fargo Bank; having closely witnessed and worked through many economic cycles in India. In the Private Equity/Mezzanine Finance, he has lead team of professionals to invest, manage and successfully exit ~USD 500 million at Wells Fargo and closed a ~USD 250 million office platform with Canada Pension Plan and Investment Board while working at Shapoorji Pallonji Group.
Puneet is also eminent member of RICS (The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors), Chairperson and Member of Global list of Trained Assessors for RICS.
Mike Holland is Chief Executive Officer of Embassy Office Parks, India’s first and only listed REIT, sponsored by Embassy Group and Blackstone. Embassy REIT listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange in April 2019. At April 2020, the business had a market capitalisation in excess of US$3bn.
Embassy REIT is Asia’s largest office REIT by area, comprising over 33 million square feet of business parks and city center offices across Bangalore, Mumbai, Noida and Pune. Home to over 160 international corporate occupiers and over 200,000 people, tenants in the portfolio include Google, Microsoft and IBM from the technology sector, Wells Fargo, JP Morgan and SwissRe from the banking and financial services sector and Rolls Royce, Mercedes Benz and VW from the aerospace and automotive sector.
Mike has worked in Asia since 1995 and has lived in India for close to two decades. He currently resides in Bangalore. He is also a board member of a number of charitable organizations with a focus on disability and education.
Suresh Rangarajan K (SRK) is a passionate & intense start-up professional. One of the early adopters of the internet world, he was part of the founding team of Citi-Times JV TimesOfMoney.com.
Under his enterprising leadership, remit2india.com went on to become the world’s #1 online money transfer portal & one of the most successful internet businesses in India.
SRK then founded an innovative real estate enterprise called Artha. The highlights of his stint at Artha includes the path breaking Start-up City & Knowledge Park – Emprasa. Combining his experience in banking, internet & real estate, SRK founded Colive to solve the housing challenges faced by millennials while offering a new asset class of Buy-to- let properties for investors.
SRK was conferred the prestigious Udyog Rattan award and WCRC and Ernst & Young also awarded him the “Trend Setter in Real Estate”. SRK is a Chartered Accountant and an alumnus of Yale School of Management.
Abhishek Goenka is currently the CEO of the RMZ Family Office and the CEO at CoWrks. He is also the CIO at CoWrks Foundry. Previously, Abhishek has worked with PwC and BMR, and in both firms he has been actively engaged in advising families in setting up a governance framework and also on succession planning. He has also assisted promoters of some of the largest listed companies in Bangalore in moving to a Trust holding structure, including dealing with cross border issues. Abhishek is well versed with the various operating models of single and multi-family offices. Abhishek is also known for his domain expertise in real estate and Prop-Tech.
Abhishek is a graduate in Commerce from the University of Bangalore and qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 1996.
Abhijit Malkani is the Country Head of ESR India. He has over 23 years of experience in real estate development and 11 years of experience in industrial and logistics real estate, making him one of the pioneers in this industry. In his previous stint, Abhijit spent over a decade as the Managing Director and a member of the founding team at IndoSpace, the leaders in Industrial and logistics real estate in the country. Prior to that, he lead the India business for Prologis, the world’s leader in logistics real estate solutions.
Abhijit brings in a wealth of leadership experience in the industrial and logistics real estate sector.
Anshul Singhal has over 15 years of leadership experience in the infrastructure and real estate sector with a track record of establishing 5 new businesses from the ground up for 3 large corporates. He has held the CEO and Director positions for Blackstone, Warburg Pincus and Brookfield investee companies.
Prior to founding Welspun One Logistics Parks, Anshul was the CEO of Embassy Industrial Parks (EIP), a joint venture between the Embassy Group and Warburg Pincus with a potential AUM of ~USD 1 billion. Under his watch, EIP delivered 6MM SF of Grade-A warehousing facilities, and acquired a land portfolio of 1400 acres in Pune, NCR, Chennai, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Hosur and Hyderabad, with development potential of over 35MM SF. He was responsible for the delivery of a 130MW solar farm in Karnataka for the Embassy Group, which entailed an investment of USD 100MMAnshul was the founding director of JSW Severfield Structures Ltd from 2007-2014, a joint venture between USD 20 billion JSW Group and Severfield-Rowen plc.; UK’s largest structural steel construction company. He was instrumental in building a pan India team that delivered factories, power plants, warehouses and high-rise office buildings in India.
He enjoys a strong network of relationships across PE funds, business houses, family offices and customers. Anshul is a member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), GRI Club and has the unique distinction of being the only Indian selected for an internship that involved working with the White House, Pentagon, IMF and World Bank during the George W Bush administration, while at university.
Rohan Sikri is Senior Partner at The Xander Group Inc. Based in Singapore, he is also Managing Director, Xander Investment Management, heads the firm’s real estate investment management program for Asia and chairs the investment committees for all Xander fund vehicles, and the credit committee for Xander Finance. He is also a member of the firm’s management committee.
Earlier, from 2005 to 2010, he co-founded and subsequently supervised Xander’s India investment program and built a US$ 1.5 billion equity investment portfolio across direct acquisitions, development partnerships, and platform joint ventures, across real estate asset classes such as office, retail, hotels, residential and industrial. The portfolio has already seen profitable exits in excess of US$ 1.4 billion. In 2010, he co-founded Xander Finance, the group's credit platform in India, where he serves as Chairman of the board. In 2014, he led the firm’s Office core plus strategy, which attracted capital largely from pension funds in Europe and the United States, currently ~7 MM SF, ~US$ 650MM, and is slated to scale further. In 2019 he established the firm’s first industrial real estate JV, slated to construct a $250 million warehouse/ logistics portfolio over the next 24 months. He is also a board member of Virtuous Retail South Asia Pte. Ltd., a Singapore headquartered integrated retail mall developer, owner and asset manager for India, set up in 2016 as a US $800 million JV between APG Asset Management and Xander Retail Partners.
VCC Events opens up the avenues for participation. Join hands to be a part of India’s largest gathering of alternative investments leaders, industry stakeholders and Asia’s influential limited partners, general partners and marquee advisors. Your chance to actively participate and augment yourself as thought leaders.
Drop us a line and we will call you.
