How Anarock Capital MD Agarwal built a solid reputation brick by brick

The pandemic hasn't disrupted Shobhit Agarwal's ambition, and his search for the next big deal

As property developers struggled with leasing of office properties and raising funds during the pandemic months, one man they turned to for selling their assets, raising debt or equity funds was 47-year-old Anarock Capital Managing Director (MD) and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Shobhit Agarwal.
 
Agarwal helped real estate developers and private equity (PE) funds cut some of the biggest deals - during and before the pandemic.
 
Agarwal has brokered deals worth over Rs 11,000 crore in the past 20 months — from raising funds for cash-starved developers and selling their assets to PE funds/developers to stitching up mega joint ventures (JVs).

 

This year, he helped sew up the $1-billion (Rs 7,400-crore ) JV between Everstone Group and Yondr for data centres - the biggest deal in this space so far.
 
He also helped one of the largest PE funds raise Rs 300 crore against a pre-leased office space in Bengaluru this year.
 
Agarwal says the deals handled by him alone this year would cross Rs 12,000 crore.
 
The total deals handled by international property consultants, such CBRE and JLL, are expected to be around Rs 30,000 crore. Agarwal’s team would be handling a third of the total deals in real estate.

 
Last year, he closed two structured debt deals worth $100 million (Rs 740 crore) for a domestic PE fund and a property developer.
 
He also helped execute Singapore-based Xander Group’s Rs 700-crore exit from investments in Mumbai-based Rustomjee.
 
But 2019 has been a milestone year for him when he pulled off the sale of One BKC to US-based Blackstone for Rs 2,500 crore - the biggest single-building deal in office space.
 
He was the sole advisor to the joint development deal to convert the iconic Kamal Amrohi Studios (Kamalistan Studios) into one of the country’s largest office parks.

 
He did the sale of the Weikfield  information technology park in Pune for Rs 900 crore.
 
He sold two malls of Tata Realty and Infrastructure for over Rs 700 crore.
 
Agarwal has also tasted success in warehousing, where his team leased around 2 million square feet of such spaces in the last two years.  
 
Agarwal set up ANB Capital Advisors after he quit JLL India, where he had worked for 17 years, last as MD of the capital markets division. However, he merged it with Anarock Property Consultants, set up by his former boss Anuj Puri.

 
Puri, an industry veteran, vouches for Agarwal's business acumen.
 
To illustrate his point, Puri recalls an incident when a client had approached him for a big deal, which could have otherwise been fiercely contested among international property consultants. When asked why he had handed over the deal to Agarwal without any bidding, the client had purportedly said, "When we have to be operated upon, we go to the best doctor, not the best hospital. Agarwal is the best professional in this segment". 
 
The clients with whom Agarwal has worked with also laud his skills.
 
"Agarwal is a solo artist, but a true team player with a great sense of humour," says Sanjay Dutt , MD of Tata Realty and Infrastructure.

 
Rajesh Agarwal, MD and CEO of Shapoorji Pallonji Investment Advisors, says Agarwal curates the deals to make sure he only chases ones which are doable, “rather than throw a lot of deals at you and expect you to wade through all of them”.
 
Agarwal (of Anarock) says the pandemic gave him a different kind of experience in his 20-year-old career.
 
“Everybody wanted to do some deal or the other. We have to move with the times and see what will work. Data centre is one such area," he says.
 
Agarwal says his biggest dream is to sell the entire portfolio of global investors, such as Blackstone and Brookfield, if and when they decide to exit.

 
"So far, I have helped developers sell their assets to global PE funds. Now I want to sell the portfolio of these funds. To date, we have done deals worth $1 billion. I would like to do deals of $3-4 billion,” signs off Agarwal.