Property developer Ackruti City Ltd is looking for “immediate” funding of 2.5 billion rupees and has roped in two partners for its proposed real estate venture capital fund, a top official said on Wednesday.
“We have some projects in the pipeline for which, I think, we should be still looking immediately at round 250 crore (2.5 billion rupees),” Chief Financial Officer Bharat Mody told Reuters in an interview.
This would be for the 3-4 new projects the company is planning to launch, he said, but did not provide a time frame.
The real estate developer had tied up a total of 10 billion rupees in funding by December, Mody had told Reuters earlier.
Ackruti has sought Securities and Exchange Board of India approval for its proposed real estate VC fund for which it has roped in Pacifica Fund and Beekman Helix as partners, he said.
The fund would be around 4-5 billion rupees, depending on the response from the investors, Mody said.
“We are looking at launching in the next few weeks time, depending on market conditions.”
Ackruti is in talks to sell stakes in special purpose vehicles formed for projects costing $60-150 to private equity firms.
Ackruti City has a landbank of 31 million square feet and holds another 30 million jointly with partners. It has around 15 million square feet under construction and a debt of around 10 billion rupees.
GATHERS MOMENTUM
The firm plans building bus terminals for Gujarat State Road Transport Corp in the next 3-6 months and more than 5 million square feet of mix-use development across Surat, Baroda, Ahmedabad and Mehsana districts of the state, he said.
The primarily Mumbai-based builder won the projects from the neighbouring state last year but were postponed due to the recession, he added.
Ackruti is waiting for regulatory nod for a 125-storey residential towers in Mumbai, where it will build around 2-million square feet of apartment space jointly with DLF Ltd and Shapoorji Pallonji.
“We expect approval sometime soon…,” he said, adding it would be the tallest towers in Mumbai.
The company has also bid for redevelopment of around 10 million square feet in suburban Bandra.
Source: Reuters