ICICI Prudential invests Rs 150 cr in Signature Global

ICICI Prudential's real estate fund has invested Rs 150 crore in realty firm Signature Global for the development of ongoing and future affordable housing projects.

Signature Global, one of the key stakeholder of financial investment firm SMC Group, is developing four housing projects comprising of 4,500 dwelling units in Gurgaon under the Haryana government's affordable housing policy.

The company will launch its fifth affordable housing project tomorrow, which has about 730 units, at Gurgaon in a price range Rs 16-22 lakh.

"We have raised Rs 150 crore from ICICI Prudential's real estate fund. The amount has been raised in debt form at group level," Signature Global Chairman and Co-Founder Pradeep Aggarwal said.

"The fund will be used for the development of our current five affordable housing projects and also to acquire new projects," he added.

KPMG India acted as the financial advisor to Signature Global for the transaction.

Aggarwal said the company is exploring opportunities for affordable housing projects in Maharashtra, Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh besides Haryana.

Signature global is looking to add 7-8 new projects this fiscal, he added.

"We have got good response for all 4 projects which have been launched so far, with each of them getting oversubscribed by almost 3-4 times at the time of launch," he said.

The construction work on all the four projects have commenced and the same would be completed in the scheduled four years time.

Aggarwal said although the margins are less in affordable housing projects, the sales volumes are higher.