While owning a home remains a dream for the majority of the people in India, the billionaires and the Bollywood celebs are buying homes worth millions or even billions. Here we go through some of the most expensive homes in India. Continue reading
Tata Housing Development Company (Tata Housing), India’s fastest growing real estate development company, with over 46 million sq ft under various stages of development, has once again triumphed at the most prestigious Asia Pacific Property Awards 2012 (part of the International Property Awards), for the fourth year in a row, bagging five coveted awards under various categories.
Tata Housing is the country’s only residential developer to receive the prestigious five-star award in the Leisure Architecture category for La Montana; highly commended awards in the Show Home category for Prive and Primanti; highly commended award in the Development Marketing category for La Montana; highly commended developer website for www.lamontana.co.in.
Additionally, La Montana, a Mediterranean-themed township located at Talegaon, designed by international architect firm F + A, was adjudged as an Asian contender in the Leisure Architecture category, to compete against the highest-scoring contenders from Europe, Africa, the Americas and Arabia, to find the ultimate ‘world’s best’.
Speaking on the achievement Brotin Banerjee, managing director and chief executive officer, Tata Housing, said, “At Tata Housing, it’s our constant endeavour to create benchmark projects based on the consumer’s needs and requirement. We are proud of our continued success at the Asia Pacific Property Awards. This year is special for us as our project La Montana achieved the distinction of winning the five-star rating for Best Leisure Architecture India, and it leads from the Asia Pacific region to be honoured with Best Leisure Architect Residential Asia Pacific. It is indeed a very proud moment for us as this is the only residential project to be nominated from India to represent the Asia Pacific region for the International Property Awards. This will strengthen our commitment to create landmark projects in the country.”
Held in association with Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) Asia, the Asia Pacific Property Awards recognises 40 categories of distinction within the fields of development, interior design, architecture and real estate. Each project was judged by a team of 65 professionals from the property discipline. They are ascertained based on quality of design, construction and presentation of individual properties as well as interior, architecture and marketing.
The Asia Pacific Property Awards are part of the long-established International Property Awards and its winners’ logo is recognised as a symbol of excellence throughout the global industry. Founded 18 years ago, these accolades distinguish excellence in the property industry worldwide, and promote international standards. For the last four years consecutively, Tata Housing has been acknowledged with multiple accolades at this prestigious annual symposium, demonstrating that it is again at the forefront of the real estate industry in Asia.
Overseas investments by Indian companies stood at USD 2.77 billion in March, up 37.6 percent over the previous month, with Binani Industries, Mercator Lines, HCL Technologies, Varun Shipping, Hexaware Technologies, and Tata Steel emerging as major investors.
As many as 489 overseas investment transactions were carried out by various companies in March, as per the Reserve Bank data released Wednesday. Binani Industries invested a total of USD 323.34 million in its two wholly-owned subsidiaries based in Luxembourg and the US that are involved in financial, real estate and manufacturing services.
Mercator Lines, which is into agriculture and mining, through its joint venture-Mercator Offshore PTE- invested USD 150.15 million in Singapore during the month, it said. ABG Shipyard, through its wholly-owned subsidiary invested USD 80 million in Singapore.
HCL Technologies, India’s fourth largest software exporter, invested USD 60 million in Bermuda through its wholly owned subsidiary for providing financial, insurance and real estate solutions.
Likewise, Varun Shipping which is into transport, storage and communication business invested USD 60 million via its JV in Cyprus.
Hexaware Technologies invested USD 38.7 million through its wholly-owned subsidiary in Germany to provide financial, insurance, real estate solutions, it said. Tata Steel invested USD 35.5 million in Singapore through its wholly-owned unit, it said.
TATA Housing Development, a subsidiary of Tata Group is entering into its home market in Mumbai by taking up project of redeveloping of old building complexes. The developer has started operations pan India which has been restricted to building townships and residential complexes adjoining the Greater Mumbai.
Brotin Banerjee, Managing Director & CEO, TATA Housing Development said, “we expect to start doing the premium housing project of redevelopment of the societies in the western suburbs of Mumbai such as Andheri and Bandra. However, in such redevelopment projects societies normally they call for bids, which make it quite competitive. This was told to Financial Chronicle.
The company hopes that its reputation for ethical behavior would get preference even if its bid is lower than others as these societies have had bad experience when dealt with lesser known realtors.” Unlike certain other developers we cannot cut corners or engage in illegal activities as these would violate the TATA code of conduct”, so it would be safer for the societies to go with developers who don’t bend rules and give a better quality housing product said Banerjee.
“These projects would help us ensure that premium development brings in around 60 per cent of our revenues this year even though they will constitute only around 40 per cent of the number of units being constructed,” said Banerjee. The company currently has 45-50 million square feet of area under development. This is split across value and premium housing respectively and includes around four to five million square feet of commercial and office development.
The company expects the first such development projects to be signed up over the next 6-9 months. “Under the Smart Value Homes and New Haven brands itself we have 15,000 homes under construction,” he added.
By the end of this fiscal year the company hopes to have operations in Kolkata, Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad, Khandala, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chandigarh and the National Capital region.
The Tata Group Company plans to raise $500 million for an India-focused private equity (PE) fund through its partnership with Mizuho Securities of Japan. Tata Capital announced last month that it will raise 1 billion Dollars from both the foreign and domestic investors by the end of next year.
On the other hand, Mizuho Sec plans to focus on developing a growth capital private equity business in India. Also, it wants to invest in Indian companies through private transactions. According to MD & CEO, Tata Capital, Praveen Kadle, Japan’s saving base offers a stable source of capital. If all goes well, there will be high investments from Japanese and other International investors.
Also, Kadle told that the company chose Singapore only due to its transparent regulation with economic and tax advantages.
tThe multi million Shapoorji Pallonji Group, India’s one of the oldest and biggest industrial house, is putting major focus on “owned” infrastructure as far as the roads, ports and power are concerned. This has been done as the company approaches 150th year of operations.
Mr. Shapoor Mistry, Group MD said during a function in Mumbai, “We have done a lot of projects under our company Afcons as contractors; now we will give a greater push for ownership-based infrastructure projects. We have already done some work in these areas, but owing projects would be our key focus.”
The group’s interests lie majorly in Real Estate, Construction, Textiles, Apparels, Shipping and Water Purification Appliances.
Shapoor’s father, Mr. Pallonji Mistry, Chairman, Shapoorji Pallonji Group is reportedly one of the largest shareholders in Tata Sons with 18.5% stake in the salt-software corp. house.