Peninsula Brookfield invests Rs100 crore in Delhi housing project
Structured debt finance in the form of non-convertible debentures is last-mile funding for Umang Realtech's Winter Hills project
Bengaluru: Peninsula Brookfield Investment Managers Pvt. Ltd has invested ₹ 100 crore in a residential project of Umang Realtech Pvt. Ltd in New Delhi, said two people familiar with the development. Umang Realtech is a joint venture between investment firm Indus Capital Partners, LLC and realty firm Uppal Group (P) Ltd.
The structured debt finance in the form of non-convertible debentures is last-mile funding for Umang Realtech’s Winter Hills project at Dwarka Mor in the national capital.
This is the fourth transaction by Peninsula Brookfield India Real Estate Fund, the maiden fund of Peninsula Brookfield Investment Managers, a venture of real estate firm Peninsula Land Ltd and global alternative asset manager Brookfield Asset Management, with more than ₹ 1,000 crore worth of assets under management.
“Peninsula Brookfield was supposed to deploy its entire fund corpus of ₹ 1,000 crore by March this year, but since it didn’t, it has got a year’s extension by when it needs to finish all the transactions," said one of the two people cited above, who didn’t wish to be named.
Both Peninsula Brookfield and Umang Realtech declined to comment.
In its earlier transactions, Peninsula Brookfield committed ₹ 200 crore to projects of Total Environment Building Systems Pvt. Ltd, a Bengaluru-based builder, ₹ 250 crore to a Bengaluru project of Mantri Developers Pvt. Ltd and another ₹ 400 crore in Ansal Properties and Infrastructure Ltd’s Greater Noida project.
Typically, in the case of any NCD issue or a plain private equity investment, the money goes out in various tranches to the project and not in one shot.
Umang Realtech, in which Indus Capital is a majority stakeholder, has four ongoing residential projects in Delhi, Gurgaon and Bahadurgarh. It also has an upcoming 54-acre residential apartment project called Monsoon Breeze on NICE Corridor, near Bengaluru.
Real estate developers are borrowing for a variety of reasons, including completing pro-jects, making payments for land and refinancing existing loans. During January-June, private equity funds invested about $1.3 billion in 39 deals in real estate, compared with $892 million in 31 deals in the same period last year, according to VCCEdge, which tracks investments.
“PE fund activity has grown exponentially this year with keen interest from investors. However, deals are still taking long to close with some deals taking even as long as 8-9 months to close," said Shouvik Purkayastha, executive director at property advisory Cushman and Wakefield.
Purkayastha said that while a lot more capital is available today and PE money continues to chase deals, deploying it remains a challenge.
“Funds are selective and investors are asking more questions in a transaction," he said.
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