Welspun One Logistics Parks' warehousing-focussed fund raises Rs 1,000 cr

Welspun One Logistics Parks (WOLP) on Tuesday said it has raised Rs 1,000 crore within four months of launching its second warehousing-focussed fund.

The company also announced the opening of its "green shoe" option to raise an additional Rs 1,000 crore.

The potential corpus could reach Rs 2,000 crore upon completion of the green shoe option, which would rank it among the largest in the domestic real estate alternatives space, WOLP said in a statement.

The plan entails an overall investment outlay of over Rs 8,000 crore, which will propel Welspun One to an Assets under management (AUM) of USD 1 billion, it said.

"We are deeply grateful to our investors for their unwavering faith in us, which has powered our successful second fund-raise," said Anshul Singhal, Managing Director at WOLP.

The warehousing sector continues to exhibit strong growth with record-high demand of 51.3 million square feet in FY23, implying a CAGR of 24 per cent during FY17-23, according to the company.

With an advanced pipeline of land parcels in key warehousing micro markets such as Mumbai Metropolitan Region. Chennai, Bangalore, and Lucknow already in place, the fund-2 is well positioned to add 10-12 million square feet of new projects to its existing portfolio, WOLP said.

This approach could potentially create an aggregate portfolio of 16-18 million square feet over the next 4-5 years across first and last-mile facilities in Tier 1 and 2 cities, it said.

Noting that Welspun One was the first to recognize the untapped potential for domestic investors, WOLP said it provided this opportunity through financialisation of real estate by launching India's first AIF of Rs 500 crore in 2021.

This fund successfully committed the entire corpus across six investments aggregating to around 6.5 million in a short span of around 1.5 years from its first close, the company said.

Further, the portfolio has also seen excellent traction on the ground with around 50 per cent of first fund's portfolio leased and delivered, it said.

"Warehousing continues to be a high conviction area for us, and we believe the industry will grow multi-fold given the government's sustained policy focus on critical transport infrastructure, manufacturing, and consumption," said Balkrishan Goenka, Chairman of the Welspun Group.