Real estate is the backbone of Indian economy and is the second largest employer in the country after agriculture. The sector is expected to reach $1 trillion by 2030. By 2025, it will contribute 13% to the country’s GDP. The sector is a horizontal sector and grows on the back of every other sector. It is deeply interlinked to as many as 220 allied sectors.
According to VCCEdge, the real estate sector in CY2020 has received the highest funding of $5.08 billion in the last 5 years on a Y-o-Y basis. The sector has received a total of $15.68 billion from 2016-2020.
The real estate sector has drawn a major attention from the government in the year 2020 as the sector hit the worst due to pandemic. The government announced a slew of measures to revive the sector such as extension of registration and completion date of real estate projects under RERA by six months using the force majeure clause, increasing liquidity in the system by the infusion of INR 30,000 crore to NBFCs and HFCs and lowering interest rates etc. The government also reduced the stamp duty on affordable housing projects, reduced TDS on sale of property etc. to boost the housing demand.
The year 2020 also saw acceleration in the digital adoption in real estate. The pandemic has forced the real estate developers and property brokers to adopt digital adoptions such as online viewing & transaction, digital launch, virtual property show & exhibition, gamification, online reputation management, etc. This trend is expected to continue and grow in coming years.
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 organizing its third edition of the Real Estate Summit 2021.
Real Estate Summit 2021 will gather leading developers, financial corporations, investment funds, think-thanks, and cutting-edge tech companies to discuss the changes in the face of this crisis and get prepared for new chapters in the India real estate sector.
By Jaideep Mehta, CEO, Mosaic Digital & Head - Mint
Proptech is transforming the real estate sector in many ways. In order to gain a competitive edge and changing customers’ playbooks, organisations are trying to keep up with the evolving digital landscape. How can investors, operators, tech companies, lenders and asset owners collaborate to innovate?
Speakers:
Sameer Nayar, MD and CEO, Buildsupply
Vivek Agarwal, Co-Founder & CTO, Square Yards
Amit Ramani, Founder & CEO, Awfis Space Solutions Private Limited
Moderator: Swet Sarika, Assistant Editor, VCCircle
With work from home widely accepted across the business sectors, there was a major shift of workforce to the tier 2 cities. However, as companies are re-opening offices, people are returning back to the metropolitan cities. Will tier 2 cities still be future destination for real estate?
Speakers:
Pavitra Shankar, Executive Director, Brigade Enterprises Ltd
Rohit Poddar, Managing Director, Poddar Housing and Development Ltd
Pankaj Bajaj, Managing Director and Chairman, Eldeco group
Moderator: Swet Sarika, Assistant Editor, VCCircle
Reeza Sebastian Karimpanal, President - Residential Business, Embassy Group
How real estate investment trusts (REITs) play an important role in Indian economy and how these provide opportunity for all kind of investors including institutional investors, retail investors, etc.?
Speakers:
Vinod Rohira, Managing Director and CEO – Commercial Real Estate & REIT, K Raheja Corp.
Rachit Kothari, VP- Investments, Brookfield Asset Management
Kunaal Shah, Partner, Trilegal
Moderator: Sitanshu Shah, Associate Partner, Bain & Company
Data centres hold promise for commercial realty demand to bounce back in 2021. How will data centres impact the Indian real estate market? What is the Investment potential of data centre real estate and what kind of returns can investors expect from the data centre segment?
Speakers:
Ritesh Sachdev, SVP & Head- Commercial Leasing & Asset Management, Tata Realty & Infrastructure Ltd. & Tata Housing Development Company Ltd.
Prashant Goyal, Director - Data Centre Solutions, CBRE India
Mahesh Khaitan, Director, Salarpuria Sattva Group
Upasana Rao, Partner, Trilegal
Moderator: Kalpesh Maroo, Partner, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu India
Reeza has been with the Embassy Group for over 15 years - she manages the residential portfolio of the company and is a member of the leadership team. She undertakes end to end management of all residential projects with an emphasis on project feasibility, positioning, sales plans & projections and business development.
In her current role, Reeza is central to conceptualizing and building the luxury residential portfolio of Embassy Group.
Prior to joining the Embassy Group, Reeza worked with an FMCG major in Dubai as a Brand Manager. She holds an MBA in Marketing and Human Resources from Christ University in Bangalore.
Vivek Agarwal is the co-founder and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Square Yards – India’s largest integrated platform for Real Estate. Vivek has been instrumental in building various tech and product platforms for the company. He rich experience spanning 18+ years with some of world’s largest companies like Intel, Nokia and Accenture. Vivek is also an avid researcher and recognized in industry circles as a thought leader having published multiple point-of-views on proptech, global mega trends, value chains, business models, products & service strategy.
Mr. Nayar is an experienced real estate investment and finance professional with a twenty five year track record in the industry. He is the Founder and CEO at BuildSupply, a technology company focused on solving intractable problems in the construction and real estate sectors. Prior to this, he was Managing Director at Credit Suisse (CS) and the Head of Real Estate Finance for the Asia Pacific region. In this role he has deployed over USD 7.5 BN of debt and equity capital across Asia. Previously, he was the head of large loan structuring and pricing in the United States and handled over USD 75 BN of loan originations during his tenure.
Prior to joining Credit Suisse First Boston in 2001, Mr. Nayar was a Senior Vice President at Moody's Investors Service in New York where he was responsible for CMBS ratings and served as a member of the Global Ratings consistency committee.
He is a founding Managing Trustee of the Special Child Trust that raises awareness and funds for children with special needs.
He is the co-Founder of The Autism Centre for Excellence, India’s first school based on the principles of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) for children on the Autism Spectrum located in Gurgaon, NCR, India.
He is a co-sponsor and a member of the Board of Directors of Children First, India’s first fully integrated institute for child and adolescent mental health.
Mr. Nayar is a member of the Young President's Organization (YPO) and holds an MS in Real Estate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT, 1996), a master's in building engineering from the School of Planning and Architecture (SPA, 1994-95), India and is a graduate of the Manipal Institute of Technology, India (1993).
Pankaj Bajaj graduated from the Shri Ram College of Commerce, Delhi University with a Bachelors degree in commerce. He later did his MBA from the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad. Pankaj joined his family promoted company Eldeco Housing & Industries Ltd in Lucknow in 1996. The company had and continues its leadership position in various segments of real estate development in UP.
In 2000, Pankaj Bajaj moved to Delhi and formed Eldeco Infrastructure & Properties Ltd. (EIPL). Today the Eldeco Group has a major presence in many North India cities. Apart from group housing, shopping malls and office buildings, the Eldeco Group is active in residential and industrial townships. The Company’s business strategy rests on positioning of each of the properties as premium in the segment for which it is proposed, high quality construction technology and timely delivery. The Eldeco Group has successfully delivered more than 175 real estate projects and is currently executing 25 projects including 10 large townships. Under the leadership of Pankaj Bajaj, Eldeco is currently executing large-scale projects in the states of UP, Haryana, Punjab, Uttarakhand and Rajasthan.
Apart from serving on various policy advisory committees, he is serving as the President of CREDAI, NCR-the association of developers in the NCR of Delhi.
Mr. Rohitashwa Poddar (Rohit Poddar) is the Managing Director of Poddar Housing and Development Ltd (PHDL)– India’s one of the leading affordable housing developers and Bombay Stock Exchange listed Public Limited Company. Poddar Housing is largely promoted by the Poddar family of The Poddar Group with a vision to create homes for life and for everyone. Mr. Poddar is the visionary behind the affordable housing venture of the Poddar Group which was flagged off in 2009. He is also a Director in several of the Poddar Group Companies. By education, he is an Engineering and Management Graduate. He holds BSc. (Hons) in Civil Engineering and BA in Business Management from Kings College London, UK. While creating homes for life is a passion, Mr. Poddar is also an avid sportsman with special interests in tennis, golf, running and skiing. Health and wellness are one of the main aspects that drive Poddar Housing’s Affordable Housing Venture, He is also an avid ‘Iyengar Yoga’ practitioner. Mr. Poddar is also a fellow of the Aspen Institute India for the India Leadership Initiative focusing on business ethics and was also voted one of the 200 Global Young Leaders by Asia Society in 2010. He has been a part of the Poddar Group since 1995 handling various businesses such as automobile tyre manufacturing, textile and apparel manufacturing and organic farming. He co-founded the Organically Grown brand in the USA in 2005 which is an organic lifestyle brand. Currently, he is successfully sphere-heading Poddar Housing and actively upgrading home buyers lifestyle as he strongly believes that life is lived on a grand spectrum of achieving dreams and goals where inspiration is drawn from home.
Ms. Pavitra Shankar is an Executive Director at Brigade Enterprises Limited, a publicly listed real estate development company, based in Bangalore, India. To date, Brigade has built over 66 million square feet across the residential, office, retail, hospitality and education sectors in South India. Pavitra has over 18 years of experience in consulting, private equity and real estate development. At Brigade, she is responsible for the strategy and growth of Brigade’s residential business, with a strong focus on sales, marketing, finance and customer experience. She also drives technology initiatives and digital transformation within the company.
Prior to Brigade, Pavitra ran Legion Real Estate in Menlo Park, California, which provided business development and real estate marketing consultancy to Indian developers targeting the NRI market in North America. Prior to Legion, Pavitra was responsible for portfolio analytics and fund operations at Rockwood Capital LLC in San Francisco, a real estate private equity firm with over $8 billion in assets under management through commingled funds and separate accounts. She has also held positions in Willis Towers Watson, a human capital consulting firm, in their Retirement Practice and Corporate Finance teams.
Pavitra holds a Bachelor's Degree in Economics and Mathematics from the University of Virginia, and a Master's in Business Administration in Real Estate and Finance from Columbia Business School, where she received the prestigious Alexander Bodini Real Estate Fellowship.
Mr. Amit Ramani is the Founder & CEO of Awfis Space Solutions, which is India’s largest homegrown flex workspace provider with 42,000 seats across 75+ centers in 12 cities in India. He started Awfis Space Solutions with a vision to revolutionize the office space delivery ecosystem in India through technology-backed just-in-time solutions.
Mr. Ramani is also the Vice President of the Indian Workspace Association (IWA) that has been established by the country's top flex workspace operators to chalk out strategies and represent the problems faced by the industry to the government as well as other stakeholders.
In addition to this, he is also the Vice-Chairman & Strategic Advisor of NCUBE India, a pioneer in providing corporate interior design and build solutions to major corporations across Asia.
Prior to founding Awfis, Mr. Ramani was the COO of NELSON Global, where he managed operations across 37 locations globally, and led the company towards being recognized as one of the top five global design firms. He has over fifteen years of experience in the areas of master planning, strategic planning, design management, workplace & business process improvement, six-sigma based strategies and facility planning.
Given his solid background, Mr. Ramani has provided innovative and complex project services to multinational corporations such as Astra Zeneca, Duke Energy, Bank of America, AT&T, Marsh McLennan, Bristol Myer-Squibb, Lockheed Martin, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and Toyota. He has also worked with organizations such as HOK Consulting, Toyota Motor Sales and The Environments Group.
Mr. Ramani is a member of RICS, NASSCOM and the Young President’s Organization (YPO) Delhi Chapter - a group comprising 200 top business leaders and owners. He is also an active member of the International Facilities Management Association CoreNet for eight years, and serves on the board of its Charlotte Chapter. Mr. Ramani’s work has been published in the Journal of Corporate Real Estate and he is a frequent speaker at industry forums such as CoreNet Global Summit on topics ranging from real estate strategy to the development of effective work environments. Additionally, Mr. Ramani has also been a guest lecturer at Cornell University, New York University and Texas A&M. He is the recipient of the prestigious IFMA Foundation award for three years in a row owing to his contribution to the field of real estate and facility planning.
Prashant is member of the executive team in India and is a subject matter expertise in Data Center Solutions. He leads the Data Center Practice team for Advisory & Transactions Services in India and is based in Mumbai. Prashant is responsible for growing the data center business for investors, providers as well as occupiers in the region. Aside from managing India business, Prashant works very closely with US, EU & APAC Data Center Solutions teams on multi-market pursuits.
Prashant has ~21 years’ professional experience in Sales & Product Management functions in the Enterprise Data Center & Cloud solutions. Prashant is a domain expert and has developed key skills in client management, advisory, marketing and deal negotiations.
SPECIALIST SKILLS:
Prashant was previously with Tata Communications Ltd; where he built, expanded and managed the Data Center business and launched Cloud Computing business. He led the transformational deals initiative with the Service Providers segment in India and SAARC region. He spearheaded the new business development efforts with Enterprise customers and System Integrators in Europe & Middle East regions.
Aside from Tata Communications, his tenure also includes positions with Virtela Technology Services, Bharti Airtel and many more.
PROFESSIONAL AFFLIATIONS AND EDUCATION
Sitanshu Shah is an Associate Partner at Bain & Company’s Mumbai office. He is an integral member of the firm’s Construction, Real Estate & Infrastructure, Energy & Natural Resources, Advanced Manufacturing & Services and Private Equity practices.
With close to 15 years of experience in consulting, he has advised clients on Growth Strategy, Performance and Operations Improvement, Customer Experience, Digital Transformations and Corporate Venture Capital across multiple industries.
Prior to joining Bain, he has worked in Real Estate Advisory at Cushman & Wakefield where he was awarded the India Consulting Professional of the Year Award. Sitanshu earned an MBA from INSEAD and graduate degree in Economics, Mathematics & Political Science from Denison University, USA.
A well-known leader in the real estate business, Mr. Mahesh Khaitan, is a Director in Salarpuria Sattva Group. With two and a half decades of expertise, he has a credit of executing over 110 projects across the country. A maestro in every aspect of the project from planning to design, construction, coordination, execution and administration, he leaves no stone unturned to ensure that every customer, be it residential or corporate, gets a perfect living or working space.
He is responsible for crafting the Group’s foray into Hyderabad with over 18 million sq. ft. of commercial development in the city, setting up IT Tech parks of global standards. Knowledge City a flagship project of the group is the testimony to his ardent project engineering and development skills.
Well-versed in legal matters and sanctions, Mr. Mahesh Khaitan keeps abreast of the latest technologies and innovations in the business. A people’s person, his relationship with customers and civic agencies have won him a loyal base of admirers, who vouch for his professionalism and humane qualities.
A committed family man, he is also interested in crunching cricket numbers and strategy while off the construction pitch.
Upasana Rao is Partner, Trilegal and is part of the corporate practice, with a focus on mergers & acquisitions, private equity and cross border investments. Upasana has advised various multinational and Indian corporations across industries on general corporate and commercial laws, securities laws and regulatory issues.
Her transactional experience includes a number of share and asset acquisitions, private equity investments, debt/equity investments in infrastructure, corporate restructuring, securities offerings, due diligences and merger control analysis.
Upasana regularly advises on corporate governance and compliance issues (both in listed and private companies). She has also advised on contentious issues and conflict management in joint ventures and shareholder’s disputes.
Upasana has been recognised as a ‘Notable Practitioner’ by IFLR1000.
Upasana also contributes to policy analysis and drafting and has represented clients and industry bodies before regulators such as the DIPP, SEBI and MCA. Recently, she was part of the drafting team for India’s new Bankruptcy Code. She represented various French luxury brands before the DIPP, Ministry of Commerce for deliberations on the issue of foreign investment in retail.
Upasana is an alumnus of King's College London, University of London and Symbiosis Law School, University of Pune. She is a member of the Bar Council of Maharashtra and Goa, India.
Upasana is a board member and Communications Chair of International Women’s Insolvency & Restructuring Confederation (IWIRC- India network). She is also a consultant member of the Indo-French Chamber of Commerce - Consumer Goods & Services committee and U.S. India Business Council – Food, Retail & Agriculture committee.
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