Cordea Savills, a European property fund manager, the Nichani Group, a diversified 60-year-old business house, and a few Indian property developers have floated a joint venture company, Cordea-Nichani Fund Manager (Mauritius) Ltd, to take up property development and project financing in India. | |
| The joint venture company plans to float an India-specific property fund 'Cordea-Nichani Indian Opportunities No 1' to raise $200 million to take up development of residential projects, SEZs, hotels-spa and serviced projects in India. |
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| The fund is to close shortly with investments mainly from European corporates, occupational and local government pension funds, fund of funds, charities and professional investors with a minimum investment size of $10 million to $30 million. |
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| Cordea Savills is a limited liability partnership firm registered in England and has been handling $5.6 billion in assets. The Nichani Group, operating out of Bangalore, Chennai and New York, has interests in film financing, IT, equity holding and real estate. |
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| Suresh Nichani, Executive Director, Nichani Holdings said, "Cordea Savills and the Nichani Group together will have a majority holding in the joint venture. One construction company and three Indian property developers are the minority shareholders." |
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| "We have signed up with Bangalore-based Velankani Infrastructure, Sastry Group and a construction company "" Caliber Construction (an associate company of Velankani Information systems) and are in advanced talks with a Mumbai builder to be part of the company," he added. |
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| According to John Partridge, Executive Chairman, Cordea Savills, "The joint venture with the Nichani group and the support of Indian developer shareholders are the perfect mix to exploit the investment opportunities in India. Based on the success of the first fund, we may look at much bigger funds to take up many more projects in India," he added. |
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| The fund will concentrate predominantly in the markets of south India (Bangalore and Chennai) and Maharashra (Mumbai and Pune). |
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| The fund's exposure in realty projects are targeted at 20 per cent to 40 per cent in residential, 20 per cent to 40 per cent in the IT office space/SEZs, 20 per cent to 30 per cent in serviced-land (golf townships or theme-based property developments) and 10 per cent to 20 per cent in hospitality projects. |
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| Presently, the company is in possession of a 20-acre plot on Kanakapura Road and 16 acres on Sarjapur Road. According to Nichani, "The company is close to acquiring strategic land parcels in Ooty (Tamil Nadu) and Kodagu (Karnataka) to take up construction of spas and hotels." |
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