Tag Archives: Pune

Sayaji Hotels Ltd to Invest Rs100 Crores in Pune; Plans to Expand Operations

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On completion of two years in Pune, Sayaji Hotels Ltd is planning to invest Rupees100 crore in Pune. . “This expansion will be completed by September 2012
with a total investment of Rs 100 crore” said, Sajid Dhanani, MD, Sayaji Hotels Ltd. The group is planning to expand its operations with a sports and cultural club, restaurant, mall, meeting and conference facilities and service apartments.
“The demand for hotels and restaurants is increasing at a good rate in Pune. Dhanani’s estimate is 22 per cent as far as hotel business is concerned. Though supply of rooms in the last two-three years has increased considerably, the restaurant business is on the rise far more speedily.
Moreover, Sayaji Hotels further plans to influence the brand image it has created in Pune by exploring in other locations like Bangalore, Chennai and Gurgaon wherein majority of its customers come from automobile, Information Technology and Engineering industries. It also has plans to expand Barbeque Nation brand from current 18 divisions in the country to around 33 divisions by the end of the year. The new Barbeque Nation restaurants will be opened in majorly in metropolitan seven cities such as Mumbai, Delhi NCR, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Pune. The group’s turnover was roughly around Rupees 190 crore for the financial year 2010-11.

11% Hike Observed in Mumbai Rentals

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Rising real estate rates may have resulted in a spiky decline in property sales, but it has lead to a good growth in rental value in Mumbai and other metropolitan cities in the country. Mumbai and the outskirts of the city have seen an 11% growth in rental value in the past year. The figure for Bangalore, Pune and Delhi has shot up by 13%, 11% and 9% respectively.

Unexpectedly, rental value in South Mumbai, one of the most preferred locations to stay in the city, has seen a drop. The Worli residential market saw a 21.31% drop last year, while the figure for Prabhadevi, Parel and Bandra (West) fell by 18%, 12% and 11.57%. “The rent in South Mumbai had gone up to the roof. It is still unaffordable. So, people are shifting towards the suburbs and outskirt of the city,” a real estate expert said. However, the rental value in the suburbs too has shot up radically. Borivli (West) witnessed a record of 42.25% growth, while the rates have shot up by 35.04% in Powai, 28.32% in Malad and 20.40% in Kandivli (East). The Mumbai metropolitan region too has seen a rise in rental value. The figure for Mira Road and Seawoods shot up by 39.28% and 36.36% respectively in the past year.

A real estate expert featured the rise in rental value to exorbitant property rates in Mumbai. “People prefer to stay in rented homes instead of buying a house. Also, there is a huge arrival of people in the city. As a result, there is a huge demand for rented homes,” a study says. Government data compiled by the stamp duty department also shows that there is a 35% of rise in the number of lease agreements being signed in the city.

DLF Deals with Mango: Ramps its Presence in Fashion Retail

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DLF Brand, a subordinate of DLF Ltd, has come up with its presence in fashion retail trade by collaborating with the Spanish Brand Mango. This happened since the brand announced its two other new retail trends, including a multi-brand showroom chain, of its own. The DLF group company had also launched, for the first time, its own brand, Pure Home and Living, a premier home decor and furnishing brand of retail showrooms. The first of the showroom opened in Delhi  two months back competing with Future Group’s Home Town and Landmark Group’s Home Centre.

Mango, the Spanish Fashion Brand, with over 1,700 showrooms worldwide, decided to sign up DLF as partner to fast track its expansion after nearly a decade of operations in India. The Spanish Brand of clothing has been majorly in partnership with Major Brands through which it released almost 15 stores. DLF will be leading the new showrooms openings. DLF, which has already opened Mango’s travel retail showroom at the new terminal (T3) of New Delhi airport and plans to add another six more stores in the current year, said DLF Brands CFO Dipak Agarwal.

“The major collaborations are now looking to grow assertively here in India having been around for so long. The company wants to concentrate on brand-building and designate the expansion to its franchisee,” Agarwal added. DLF also operates other universal fashion names such as Armani, DKNY, Ferragamo and Mothercare.

DLF is set to launch a multi-brand retail store chain of international fashion brands, the company official said. These showrooms will also store brands that are not part of DLF Brands and will be competing with the high-end retail formats like The Collective, a unit of Aditya Birla Nuvo.

“The multi-brand showrooms will be like a premium discount showrooms keeping high-end fashion labels but at lower price, as there is an opportunity in the market for such showrooms which are highly internationally popular. These stores will be done up gracefully and won’t look like the second stores or factory outlets which are available at present,” Agarwal said. The first of the multi-brand showroom is spread across 10,000 sq. ft which will open in Gurgaon.

DLF group spreads across 16,000 to 18,000 sq. ft is looking to open more 4-5 stores in Mumbai, Bangalore and Pune by end of this year.

Real Estate Developers Tie-Up With Education Industry

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YorkLanes Mall
Po.Realty sector and Infrastructure firms like GMR and Hindustan Construction Company have announced to set up university campuses and other educational institutes within the country. They mainly aim to ride high on the huge returning education industry.

The education industry in India is worth more than 10 bn US dollars with continuous growth rate. As the Real Estate market is on a low developers are looking at alternate assets such as education.

Partnerships of such kind are increasing day by day in every other township or SEZ as educational institutes bring more revenue.

Chintan Patel, Associate Director, Transaction Advisory Services, E&Y said, “Access to social infrastructure such as schools and colleges serve as attractive features that make it easier for a developer to sell projects.”

Further he had to say that partnerships between a developer and an international institution benefits society and develops retail, office and residential spaces around.

The tie ups usually work on build-and-rent business model. While a developer acquires the land and builds the infrastructure for the educational facility, the institute runs the school or college. It either pays rent or works on a revenue-share model.

The companies which are laying out plans in education are HCC who have bought 500 acres for institutes at Lavasa, its hill city project close to Pune, Maharashtra.It has tied up with Symbiosis, Bangalore-based Christ University, Institute of International Business Relations of Germany, Switzerland-based hospitality Management Institute Ecole Hoteliere de Lausanne and Educomp, and more.

Global infrastructure player GMR, too, has collaborated with Canada-based Schulich School of Business to build a campus in Shamsabad, Andhra Pradesh, The Company will construct the physical infrastructure for the institute, and in return, earn management fee on the maintenance of residences and hostel facilities. Also, it is planning an aviation academy on 25 acres in the same region, fueled by its international airport project in Hyderabad.

Yatra Capital to Increase Investment In India

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Panama Property = Money
Photo by thinkpanamaEuronext-listed company, Yatra Capital managed by Saffron Capital Advisors, an Indian Real Estate Private Equity fund has announced to invest around 20 million Euros in India in FY10. The company plans to invest the Rs 115 cr in two deals in the domestic sector of real estate. The company has as of now invested about Rs 916 cr in 13 projects which include 2 entity-level details.

The weighted average Yatra Equity Fund covers 27 million square feet spread over nine cities. They have sold or pre let over 3 million square feet across various projects.

The chairman and Co-Founder, Yatra Capital, Mr. Christopher Wright said, “In India, one needs to be very careful on Real Estate investments as the market is volatile. After a drop in 2008-09, the realty sector is now moving up. The Indian economy is growing well making people more confident on future investments. We have invested 44% in residential projects, which would be our focus area in future. We always look at investing in affordable residential projects in tier I and II cities.”

Yatra has invested in 90 cr Residential Project and 97 cr Market City Retail Project at Pune, 115 cr in Riverbank Holdings, 91 cr in forum IT parks and 23 cr in Taj gateway at Kolkata, 160 cr in market city at Bangalore and 57 cr at Nashik.

It has entered partnership with Phoenix Mills for 5 various projects across Bangalore, Pune and Mumbai.

A presentation by Yatra to investors in March this year said, “Most markets have seen positive traction due to price cuts. However, developers have now started raising prices especially in Mumbai and the National Capital Region which has led to a slowdown in sales. Projects where pricing is realistic continue to enjoy healthy absorptions. The monetary environment tightening may impact the fund raising environment for many real estate companies still out to raise money. Investor enthusiasm for participation in realty IPOs remains muted.”

The RBI’s Realty Indices For Ahmedabad

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Ahmedabad happens to be one of the 11 countries for which the reserve bank of India would prepare one index for commercial and one for residential properties. This is done to curtail speculations and expected realty bubble burst in the coming years. The RBI report on asset price monitoring system (ASMS) advised to formulate these indices two months back.

Reserve Bank of India, Kolkata
Photo by seaview99

Many different countries such as Canada, France, us refer to these indices for realty prices.

The report says, RBI should start compiling a realty index and update it every quarter. To begin with, the report has proposed Mumbai and Delhi where property prices have skyrocketed to record levels. After these cities RBI would add 10 other cities which include Greater Chandigarh, Hyderabad, Chennai, Bhubaneswar, Pune, Jaipur, Kolkata, Lucknow, Bangalore and Bhopal.

The real estate price index once devised would become the primary index that could be perused by investors to gauge the performance of companies that are listed in the realty sector. The index can also help the investor analyze how real estate is performed in comparison to stocks and bonds. It can also provide information on the risk involved in a particular investment and returns that can be achieved from it.

The ASMS report has defined the deficiencies this indices would help overcome.

Joint Venture Among Tata Housing & Tata Realty

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Joint venture
April 26, 2010

The two companies Tata Realty and Tata Housing belonging to Tata Sons Ltd. are competing with each other which are doing nothing but hindering Tata Sons on a whole.  Therefore, Tata Sons is asking them to avoid this competition.

Tata Housing Development Co. Ltd was established so as to develop and sell primarily residential projects whereas Tata Realty and Infrastructure Ltd was set up to function as a fund and develop infrastructure projects. They both are 100 percent subsidiaries of the group.

Some officials stated that the problem arose two years ago when Tata Realty started looking for real estate projects which directly overlap Tata Housing’s business interests.

This competition is on its peak since both of them now plan residential projects in cities such as Pune and New Delhi.

Now, Tata Realty is been told that it has two options; either develop its ongoing and future residential projects as joint ventures with Tata Housing or not pursue housing projects at all.

Mr. Brotin Banerjee, managing director and chief executive officer of Tata Housing maintained a silence when asked if the two groups had competition amongst them and said that just some overlaps were there and added that the companies shared the same chairman, R.K. Krishnakumar.

The Indian Hospitality Industry-An overview

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Indian hospitality industry has emerged as a hotspot destination for investment for the global hospitality companies in the last few years. Many leading global hotel chains aim to enter India in the near future and the ones that are already present in the country as of now are eager to expand. The companies are betting big on dearth of hotel rooms in the nation.

ATTARD - Hôtel Corinthia Palace
Photo by Michel27Industry estimates say, in the next 3 years there will be about 40 international hotels operational in the country. These global chains plan on catering to all the classes—the upper scale, mid-scale, the economy and the budget.

Some of the chains that are set to come to India are MGM Mirage Hospitality a US-based firm, Amari from Thailand, Fairmont Raffles Hotels, Golden Tulip Hotels, Movenpick Hotels and Resorts, Corinthia Hotel group from Europe, Carlson, Starwood, Choice, Marriott, Accor, Hyatt, Intercontinental and Hilton.

Amari Hotels is set to launch Amari India and is searching for expansion opportunities in the Indian metro and tier-II cities to open seven hotels and resorts within the next 5-7 yrs. Likewise, MGM Mirage Hospitality aims to sign management contracts with realty sector developers as joint venture initiatives with local companies to set up hotel properties in the country.

Kaushik Vardharajan of HVS Hospitality Services said that, “India is more profitable for global hospitality firms than the international market. There is huge demand-supply gap which offers opportunities for international firms”. Data gathered by the firm shows that the international and domestic hotel chains had announced in August to build at least 9400 rooms in the country but the actual construction is underway for 3,840 rooms only.

Another hotel chain, Fairmont Raffles Hotels International is in advanced stage of discussions for properties in Delhi, Gurgaon, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Goa and Chennai.
Golden Tulip is looking to add 10 properties which totals to 800 keys across tier-II towns by the end of the next financial year.

Four Seasons, a luxury hotel brand is in various stages of discussions with developers for constructing properties in Bangalore, Delhi, Hyderabad, Pune and Goa. “There is enough room for several players to enter the market. India will become a major market for our company,” said Director Marketing Four Seasons, Sanjiv Shukla.

Accor, which has five hotels at present, will expand its network to 50 with 10,000 rooms in 15 cities by 2012.

ITC Welcomgroup plans to add 40 hotels to its 113 under four brands out Of which 25 are under the Fortune brand of business hotels. Senior Executive Vice-President at ITC, Pawan Verma said that “We are attached to the ground unlike them (international chains). We excel in Indian hospitality”.

The Taj Group is growing furiously both in the country and abroad. It is looking to roll more than 70 new hotels in 4 categories including its budget brand Ginger to add to the 105 hotels out of which 17 will be abroad.

However, falling rates of up to 18 per cent over last year has become a cause of concern for these hospitality chains. In 2008-09, the average room rate was Rupees 7,800 which has now reduced to Rupees 6,396 per night.

Still it will not be wrong to say that Indian hospitality is in a state of war where hotel rooms are being built like army barracks.

City Corp Launches Apartment Exchange Scheme

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City Corporation has started apartment exchange scheme. This exchange scheme meant for its future customers who would exchange their present house with an apartment in the firm’s Amanora Park Town project in Pune. City Corporation would buy old apartments from customers, renovate them and sell-off through an established network of real estate agents.
City Corporation is developing a 400-acre township named Amanora Park Town in Pune, which would have 12,000 apartments in different categories. As per this scheme, a flat owner, who wishes to buy an apartment at Amanora Park Town, would hand-over power of attorney to City Corporation at a mutually agreed price. This amount would then be considered as down payment for the new apartment booked in Amanora Park Town and the flat owner would continue to stay in the old flat till the new flat gets ready.