Mahindra arm forms JV with Actis; to invest Rs 2,200 cr in industrial units

Mahindra Lifespace or its affiliates and Actis or its affiliates will jointly invest in asset owning SPVs and in an entity that will provide business services to the asset owning SPVs

Realty firm Mahindra Lifespace Developers Ltd on Thursday announced a joint venture with Actis to develop industrial and logistics facilities with an initial investment of Rs 2,200 crore.

Actis is a global investment firm.

In a regulatory filing, Mahindra Lifespace informed that the company has executed definitive documents to establish joint ventures with Actis for developing industrial and logistics real estate facilities across India.

Mahindra Lifespace or its affiliates and Actis or its affiliates will jointly invest in asset owning SPVs (special purpose vehicles) and in an entity that will provide business services to the asset owning SPVs.

The company may own stakes in the range of 26 per cent to 40 per cent in these entities, and the balance will be owned by Actis or its affiliates.

Both partners have earmarked up to 100 acres of land across Mahindra World Cities as seed assets to be acquired by the asset owning SPVs during the course of arrangement.

In addition, the two JV partners plan to expand the business by acquiring and developing greenfield and brownfield projects across India.

"The total investment in the business over the initial years, including debt, is estimated to be Rs 2,200 crore," the company said.

Mahindra Lifespace noted that industrial and warehousing have emerged as a high-growth real estate asset class buoyed by rising consumer demand and accelerating manufacturing investment.

The National Logistics is expected to give a further fillip to investments in the sector.

Commenting on the joint venture, Arvind Subramanian, Managing Director and CEO, Mahindra Lifespaces, said, We are witnessing strong and accelerating demand for Grade A warehousing and manufacturing facilities from both multinational and Indian clients."

He said the company has experience in building and operating integrated cities and industrial parks and ready-to-market plug-and-play infrastructure in Mahindra World Cities in Chennai and Jaipur.

Hence, the company is well-positioned to cater to this demand.

Mahindra Lifespace's development footprint spans 32.14 million sq ft of completed, ongoing and forthcoming residential projects across seven Indian cities.

It also has over 5,000 acres of ongoing and forthcoming projects under development/management at its integrated developments/industrial clusters across four locations.