Shriram Properties plans to raise Rs 800 crore for new projects

The company had revamped the organisation by bringing in young people, says M Murali

The Rs 90,000-crore Shriram Group’s real estate arm, Shriram Properties, is planning to raise about Rs 800 crore to fund its new projects. It is also mulling to go public by next year.

M Murali, managing director, Shriram Properties, told Business Standard the company had revamped the organisation by bringing in young people, and was looking at aggressive growth in Chennai and Bengaluru. 

The organisational shake-up has yielded positive results for the developer, which sold 350 units in the first quarter of 2017-18 against 600 units through the entire last financial year. The company said it was planning to double the first-quarter show in the next quarter.

Murali said that with rules and compliance norms in the real estate sector getting stringent, a number of developers would shut shop, which would lead to lower supply and higher demand.

To tap the opportunity, the company, which is focussing on mid- and affordable-housing segments, is planning to invest in new projects and considering raising around Rs 800 crore from investors, while it will pump in around Rs 200 crore. 

“We are hoping that in the next six-to-eight months, we will be able finalise the deals (raising money from investors),” said Murali. The company is mainly targeting pension and sovereign funds, who typically stay with companies for long.

The proposed fund-raising will support projects worth Rs 4,000-5,000 crore. Over 70 per cent of them would come up in Bengaluru and Chennai, said Murali, who is also looking at Mumbai and Hyderabad.

The company, which has delivered around 15 million square feet (sq ft) of residential space in south India and Kolkata, is in the process of constructing 18 million sq ft, while 60 million sq ft is in the pipeline.

On the company’s initial public offering (IPO) plan, he said the process would start by the end of 2017-18 and  the issue might hit the market by 2018-19.

Shriram Properties, which has raised $805 million from various investors till now, has given return of around 20 per cent, which according to experts is “one of the best”.

The company is also planning to enter into the commercial space by developing three-four million sq ft of office space across Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Pune.