The Hindu Business Line : Emaar forms 50:50 construction venture with Leighton Asia

JOINING HANDS: Mr David Savage, MD, Leighton Asia (Southern), and Mr Shravan Gupta, Executive Vice-Chairman & MD, Emaar MGF Land Pvt Ltd, at a press conference in the Capital on Monday. — Ramesh Sharma

New Delhi May 21 Real estate player Emaar MGF Land Pvt Ltd has formed a 50-50 joint venture with Leighton Asia Southern, part of Australia's Leighton Group, to carry out construction of its projects in India.

The new company, Leighton Construction India Pvt Ltd, will invest $150 million in technology and design expertise over the next few years. It is likely to execute project with revenues in excess of $2.5 billion over the next seven years.

Elaborating on the nature of the joint venture, Mr Shravan Gupta, Executive Vice-Chairman and Managing Director, Emaar MGF, said, "Investment by the new company will match the requirements in the future."

Real estate boom

Mr David Savage, Managing Director, Leighton Asia Southern, said that the new venture would be able to take advantage of the boom in the real estate sector in India.

The first few projects that the joint venture company would work on are `Mohali Hills', `The Views' and `The Central Plaza' in Mohali and `The Palm Springs' in Gurgaon.

On the initial public offering plans of Emaar MGF, Mr Gupta said that the issue would come in around 12-18 months with an equity dilution of around 10 per cent.

Emaar MGF is a joint venture between Dubai's Emaar Properties PJSC and India's MGF Developments. Leighton is a project development and contracting group with revenues of over $8 billion.