commercial real estate

In most recent realty news, southern real estate developer, RMZ Corp is in the advanced stages of negotiations to acquire Equinox business park in Mumbai from the Ruias of Essar Group. Sources familiar with the development confirmed that the transaction has been concluded for a monstrous Rs. 2400 crore. While billionaire brothers Shashi and Ravi Ruia are divesting non-core assets to pare Essar’s debt burden, this is by far the largest real estate deals of Mumbai and one of the biggest in India.

Bangaluru  based RMZ, backed by Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), will pay around Rs 19,000 per sqft for Essar’s 1.2 million sqft biz park, located adjacent to Bandra Kurla Complex which houses lessees like IDFC, Tata Communications, Crompton Greaves, Nissan and Lafarge among other Essar companies. RMZ manages about 20 million sqft of commercial office space across multiple cities and is currently on the prowl for large acquisitions to build an 80 million sqft portfolio in the next five years.

Anshuman Magazine, chairman and managing director, CBRE South Asia, notes that The Essar – RMZ deal shows an improvement of interest in commercial real estate. Such core rental yielding assets have lower risks associated as there is no pressure of development and leasing.

Anuj Puri, JLL India chairman and country head,  said in spite of the various influences that shape up real estate markets across India, Mumbai’s intrinsic equity as India’s financial capital remains undiminished and continues to drive major decisions by corporate and investment houses.

In some of the other large transactions, GIC of Singapore acquired 69% stake in Nirlon, which manages a 2 million sqft office park in Goregaon suburb, for 1300 crore in December 2014.

About two months ago, pharmaceutical conglomerate Abbott acquired 4.35 lakh sqft of commercial space in a tower developed by Godrej Properties in Bandra-Kurla Complex for Rs 1,479 crore.

In another massive multi-layered deal in office real estate market, Brookfield purchased Unitech’s Corporate Park for Rs 2050 crore  for majority control of six parks in NCR and Kolkata. Furthermore, Embassy Office Parks, backed by Blackstone, acquired Vrindavan Tech Village in Bangalore for Rs 1950 crore.

India’s large grade office buildings, riding on a robust services economy, have returned stable yields to investors in an otherwise volatile real estate market. Assets worth nearly $3 billion have together been acquired by global investors like Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board, Brookfield Asset Management, Blackstone  and Middle East sovereign funds among others during the last calendar year.

real estate developers in mumbai

We all know that Mumbai is the financial capital of the country and it is the city where most of the leading real estate developers have their head offices. According to recent survey Bengaluru based real estate firms are well impressed with the skills of those who are working in the Mumbai based real estate firms and due to that most of the Bengaluru based leading real estate developers are approaching to Sr. executives and consultants for the top position who are working for Mumbai based developers.

In last, one year more than 15 Sr. executives from the real estate firms of Mumbai have moved to Bengaluru. In the latest moves, Om Ahuja, CEO of residential services at Jones Lang LaSalle in Mumbai head office, joined Brigade group as the CEO of residential services in Bengaluru. However; 8 months before Ozone group hired the Srinivasan Gopalan on the position of CEO whereas; earlier he was the COO and CFO of Wadhwa group, a Mumbai based real estate firm. Bhavesh Kamdar was earlier with L&T Realty, but recently he joined Embassy group as the head of leasing department.

Om Ahuja, who recently joined Brigade group as the CEO of residential services stated that “In Bengaluru the prospect of joining new company and getting more exposure in real estate sector is much more and due to that I joined Brigade group, which has very good track record in building the best quality integrated townships. Apart from that Brigade group has been recently rated as the great place to work and due to these mentioned reasons I decided to move to Bengaluru and it was easy for me even after spending 20 years in Mumbai.”

Why real estate market of Bengaluru is attracting real estate professional?

In present, Bengaluru is witnessing huge growth in terms of property development as well as price of real estate market and due to that in past eight months of duration the city has witness the sales of more than nine million square feet in commercial space. These days Mumbai based real estate developers are focusing on the luxury residential and commercial development, whereas; in Bengaluru there is demand for office space and city has fuelled the demand for homes buyers as well. However; the city has accounted more than 49 per cent office space absorption in 2014.

According to the reports of Colliers International, Bengaluru has absorbed 13.77 million sq ft of office space in 2014. The Gopalan added that Bengaluru based real estate developers are transparent, professionals and they willing to share project ownership with other private equity firms. In Mumbai, CFO’s of the organizations run the whole show, but in Bengaluru it is the CEO who is responsible to call the shots with the focused operation.

Professionals are running Bengaluru based real estate developers and due to that they are interested in hiring the professionals on frontline. As per the real estate experts, the houses in Bengaluru are listed with the respected names such as; Prestige, Brigade, Puravankara and Sobha as well as some of the unlisted real estate developers such as; Embassy group, RMZ and more. Apart from all these as per the real estate experts companies in Bengaluru are offering better career and growth.

Supertech to raise Rs 500 crore

The leading real estate firm Supertech is planning to list its six of the rented as well as operational malls with REIT (real estate investment trust) to raise Rs 500 crore in the duration of next two years which is the year 2015 and 2016. As per one of the latest survey Supertech has more than 2 million sq ft of retail space in its six malls out of which two are in Ghaziabad and one each is in Noida, Rudrapur, Haridwar, Rudrapur, and Meerut.

However there are few products under construction by Supertech. Currently Supertech is in discussion with one of the Singaporean company which has experience in setting up the real estate investment trust in various real estate markets. As per the statement of officials we are in the starting stage for the listing of our assets and REITs own the properties to get the rental income and distribute it among investors. For real estate investors they provides high dividend with a liquid option where one can invest in the real estate sector.

Most of the real estate firm in the country and as well as some of the private-equity funds are showing interest to set up the REITs because stock market regulator SEBI (Securities and Exchange Board of India) notified its rules to list the trusts in September 2014 with a aim to view and attract more and more funds in a transparent manner, so that real estate developers can pool the money for the development of new projects. But till now no REIT is listed in India and it’s just because the lack of clarity in taxation process. With a aim to encourage local listing, central government is decided to do some capital gains in the favor of sponsors in the Union budget of 2015 at the time of listing of REITs on rental income.

However the capital gain will be applicable for all the direct transfer of same or different assets to any kind of these trusts. But still the budget is not offering any clarity on dividend distribution t as. The major real estate developers such as; RMZ, DLF, Embassy Office Parks, Ambience and many others with PE firms such as; Kotak Realty Fund, Red Fort Capital and Blackstone is known for listing their assets as REITs. They have develop the acquired rent producing assets in past few years as it could attract more than $1 billion or Rs 6,280 crore in 2015 witht eh additional tax benefits announced in the union budget of 2015, said the property consultant from JLL India. However most of the property experts said that in near future more exemptions can be made by the state as well as central government to make its segment more attractive for real estate players.

But it’s clear that the Capital gains taxes will exempted on the transfer of any SPV (special purpose vehicles set up to carry new real estate projects) share by different or same sponsors but at the MAT ( minimum alternate tax) is still applicable. If the minimum alternate tax will be so it will make REITs more attractive for real estate developer, says Shweta Aggarwal, Director of BMR & Associates.