Piramal Finance forays in housing finance segment

Financial services company, Piramal Finance today announced it's entry into retail housing finance business through its wholly-owned subsidiary, Piramal Housing Finance.
The company will offer home loans as well as loans against property and construction finance for small developers.
"Given the size, scale and market relevance of the wholesale lending business, it was a natural progression to assess opportunities within the retail lending space," Piramal Finance and Piramal Housing Finance managing director, Khushru Jijina said.
Piramal Enterprises chairman Ajay Piramal said the company will be able to deliver a seamless and customer-centric experience to all its stakeholders, including individuals, developers, agents, partners and now the target end users.

"We are confident that the unique business model being adopted by Piramal Housing Finance will add another dimension to our service offering and establish a blueprint for further growth," Piramal said.
The housing finance company got its licence from National Housing Board on September 4 this year and already has an asset under management (AUM) of over Rs 200 crore.

"We have built the Rs 200 crore with 15 of our developers and their 30 projects. We are not including construction finance to small people here, that will be done independently. This is just housing loans to tier 2 and 3 cities," Piramal said.

It plans to achieve a loan book of Rs 15,000 crore by 2020, he said.
Talking about the stressed asset fund, which Piramal Enterprises launched with Bain Capital Credit in August last year, Piramal said the fund is looking at buying assets from many sector such as steel, pharmaceuticals, auto ancillaries, cement and power, among others.
"We have said before that we will invest USD 75-100 million, and Bain Capital will invest an equal amount. We plan to raise funds from the investors and have a fund size anywhere between USD 750 to USD one billion," he said.
On GST, he said in the long run, it is going to increase the overall turnover and will help the organised industries.