Great Lakes eyes tie-up for Mumbai campus

Mumbai facility would not require an investment of more than Rs 50 crore and the institute is looking at an area of 3-3.5 acre land

Great Lakes Institute of Management, a Chennai-based business school, is planning set up its campus in Mumbai in tie up with entrepreneurs.

The institution, which is expected to shift to a new campus in Delhi, is looking at starting the Mumbai campus two years down the line, said Bala V Balachandran, founder of Great Lakes Institute of Management.

“We would rope in an entrepreneur who holds land to set up the campus and will give them shares, which is exactly the model which we have followed for our second campus in Delhi,” said Balachandran. He was speaking after announcing a dual degree programme with the IAE University of Bordeaux School of Management.

The Mumbai facility would require less than Rs 50-crore investment and the institute is looking for around 3.5 acre. The proposed campus will have a capacity of about 120 students to begin with, apart from residential facilities, and would focus on courses on finance and insurance.

The Chennai campus offers courses on entrepreneurial, marketing and family business, while the Delhi facility focuses on topics such as energy and public policy. The institute has around 600 students.

In the National Capital Region, the institute has its facility in Gurgaon with around 100 students. It is expecting to shift operations to its new campus, which has been set up in 3.5 acre in Vasantkunj, Delhi, by June. With this, the capacity would also increase to 120 and can go up to 200, he said.

For the Delhi campus, the institute has partnered with Shantanu Prakash, founder of Educomp, and Mohan Lakhamraju, director of Great Lakes Institute of Management. Both hold 25 per cent in the Delhi institute. The investment in the facility would be Rs 80-100-crore.

The institute, on Monday, announced a tie-up with  IAE University of Bordeaux School of Management under which the students of Great Lakes can earn an MBA degree from Bordeaux University in addition to the Program Certificate or Diploma they receive from Great Lakes.

Serge Evraert , dean IAE, Bordeaux, France, said the initiative with the institute in India will  provide an opportunity to the faculty and staff at IAE to understand India better and over a period of time extend the activities to other initiatives in executive education, teaching and research.