The Hindu Business Line : Europe’s Plaza Centers enters mall space

Entering India: (from left) Mr Yoram Barak, Executive Director, Elbit India, Mr Abraham (Rami) Goren, Executive Vice-Chairman, Elbit Imaging Group, and Mr Eli Mazor, Global Marketing Director, Plaza Centers, at a press conference in Mumbai on Monday. —

Our Bureau

Mumbai, Sept. 3 Plaza Centers, an entertainment and commercial centre developer in East Europe, announced its entry into India with plans to set up 50 malls within the next five to seven years.

“We plan to invest Rs 5,000 crore for their development, part of which will be from internal sources and the rest through debt,” said Mr Abraham (Rami) Goren, Executive Vice Chairman of the Elbit Imaging Group, which owns Plaza Centers.

Joint ventures are being finalised with the Indian partners for two malls in Pune and one each in Bangalore, Chennai, Thiruvananthapuram and Kochi, slated to open by October 2009.

Plans for North

The company is also looking to move to north India and though nothing has been finalised, talks are on with several developers and leading multiplex owners in the region.

“Two years ago, we were debating whether to go to China or India and zeroed in on India because of the language factor, legal system and people,” said Mr Oren Kolton, Vice-President, Business Development Asia.

The company plans to enter other Asian markets eventually, he said. “In five years, the market in Europe will get saturated. So we decided that we needed to move into other markets too,” said Mr Goren.

Mall structure

The planned malls will be two-storeyed, with an average height of six meters, explained Mr Arif I. Sheikh, Director-Marketing India. It will have underground parking facilities, and a floor space of 10-25 lakh square feet approximately, he said.

The company will have 30 to 40 people on its pay roll within the next couple of years, Mr Kolton said, and they will lease, hold and manage the entire operations from their current headquarters in Bangalore.

Individual shops will not be sold to retailers, and tie-ups will be with 90 per cent of Indian retailers and 10 per cent of European brands who are interested in coming to India with Plaza Centers.

On protests

Commenting on the protests foreseen by the group to invest in India, Mr Goren said, “I am not concerned about that. As an outsider, I am not an expert in Indian politics and have partners to manage that part. This has happened all around the world, and I am confident that it will be sorted out in some time.”

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