Yatra Capital (Yatra), a private equity player with focus on the Indian real estate, today announced investments in two companies in the retail and hospitality sectors. One of them is a $3.91 million (around Rs 22.8 crore) investment for a 28 per cent holding in Gangetic Developers, a joint venture formed to develop a retail mall in Agra, Uttar Pradesh. The other company that Yatra invested in was Alliance Hospitality Services to develop premium star category hotel and services apartments in Pune, Maharashtra. Yatra would invest ¤4.88 million (around Rs 28.5 crore) in the company for an equity holding of 20 per cent. With these investments, Yatra has now committed USD 80.5 million (around Rs 470.9 crore) of the initial USD 100 million (Rs 585 crore) it raised in December 2006. The PE player has identified hospitality and retail as the next growth areas. The hospitality sector in India is forecasted to grow at 8.8 per cent every year over the next 10 years, and it is anticipated that 1 lakh rooms will be required in the next 5-7 years with average room rates rising by 20-25 per cent in 2-3 years. […]