The Hindu Business Line : Realty consortium to raise $100 m from London AIM

Hyderabad, Nov. 19 A group of real estate companies are poised to come together as a consortium aimed at raising $100 million from the London Alternative Investment Market (AIM).

There is huge appetitive for investments in real estate companies in India by the overseas companies, which continue to believe in the growth story here, according to Mr Donald Skip Conover, who has recently been inducted as the Chairman of Bhavana Global Services, a Hyderabad-based realty company.

For Mr Conover this constitutes his entry into real estate business. He was earlier associated with business process outsourcing industry, particularly medical transcription. He founded CBay Systems Ltd.

Addressing a press conference here today, Mr Conover said that they expect to freeze the fund by first quarter of 2008 and are close to finalising deals with private equity players based in the UK. The funds thus raised would be deployed in real estate ventures, particularly satellite townships and tall structures dotting the Outer Ring Road in Hyderabad.

“Unlike real estate ventures with land banks, who are tapping the capital markets, we do not have land banks. Therefore, we have opted for the PE route,” he said.

The Chief Executive Officer of Bhavana Developers, Mr. Seshu Kumar, said that the company had order book of Rs 400 crore and plans to step up work in various projects in the State.

“Just like the real estate business in the West, wherein public properties are owned by Real Estate Investment Trusts, India should also allow such trusts to operate. This will encourage large funds like Calpers and Sam Zell to invest in India. We expect a regulatory announcement in India on this issue. This will attract more investment from insurance funds with large corpus and huge investment appetite,” Mr. Conover said.

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