Nitesh to raise Rs 150 cr debt for retail foray project in Bangalore

Bangalore-headquartered real estate developer Nitesh Estates Ltd is planning to raise around Rs 150 crore of debt in the near future to fund its retail project in the city.

The publicly-listed company, which is planning to enter the retail space with the development of ‘Nitesh Mall’, has a plan to invest around Rs 325 crore in this retail project.

“We are planning to raise around Rs 150 crore of debt to fund our retail project in the city. We are in talks with three banks and we expect to receive the closure in the first quarter of the next fiscal,” L S Vaidyanathan, executive director of Nitesh Estates said.

He also said that the company had already invested around Rs 90 crore in the project as of now.

Earlier, HDFC Property was understood to have acquired around 25 per cent in this retail SPV for $25 million. However, it didn’t materialise due to some technical glitches in the deal structure.

“Nitesh mall is the fully-owned subsidiary of the company and we are not planning to dilute our stake in the near future,” he said.

Nitesh Mall is coming up in 5.5 acres of land in the eastern part of Bangalore. The mall is being designed by Seattle-based architecture firm Callison and is expected to be ready by the end of next year.

The company is also planning to develop mall projects worth around $300 million in Chennai, Thiruvananthapuram and Kochi. For this Nitish Estates has tied up with Citigroup and plans to roll out these projects in the next 2-3 years.

The realtor, which has already launched four projects after its listing in May, is planning to launch another five by the end of this fiscal.

“Our debt level has been reduced to Rs 10 crore, with a near zero debt, equity level that gives us the leverage to raise money for our future projects,” he said.

Nitesh Estates, which is developing around 1 million sq ft of area in Chennai, is looking at a majority dilution in this project.

“We are in talks with two PE players to dilute around 74 per cent of our stake in our Chennai project which will be an integrated development of residential, commercial and retail at an investment of Rs 1,350 crore,” Vaidyanathan said.

Talking of cash flow situation, he said the company was expecting a cash flow of around Rs 700 crore in the next two years with a significant upside in the profitability.

Share price of Nitesh Estates closed 1.23 per cent higher at Rs 32.90 on Monday’s trading session in BSE.