KKR’s India realty investments Co-Head Ashish Khandelia quits, to set up own fund

Ashish Khandelia, head of real estate investments, KKR & Co.

Mumbai: Ashish Khandelia who co-headed the real estate investments of global private equity major KKR& Co in India has put in his papers, according to two people aware of the development. Khandelia, director, Capital Markets, KKR India plans to set up his own real estate finance business consists of private equity, structured financing and NBFC as well, said first person on condition of anonymity. Besides Khandelia, another member at real estate team Saurabh Gupta - principal, Real Estate, KKR India also put in his paper last week. A KKR spokesperson, however, declined to comment on the matter.

Under Khandelia’s leadership, KKR has deployed more than a $1 billion in various real estate projects in India. Ashish Khandelia who joined KKR in 2013, served as an Executive Director and Head of Acquisitions for Morgan Stanley Real Estate (MSRE), India.

Prior to joining Morgan Stanley, Ashish worked with Kotak Investment Bank and Ernst & Young. At Kotak, he was instrumental in establishing Kotak’s real estate investment banking practice including initiating coverage, advising India’s largest real estate company on several fund raising options and executing one of the first entity-level PE investment in the Indian Real Estate sector, according to KKR website.

Mail sent to KKR on Friday went unanswered while Khandelia declined to comment.

Set up in 2014, the realty-focused investment unit - KKR India Asset Finance signed its first transaction in June 2014 when it invested about Rs350 crore in Mumbai-based Wadhwa Group’s luxury homes project, The Address, in suburban Ghatkopar. Since its launch, it has invested about $1 billion in some 25 projects across the country.

KKR India Asset Finance Pvt. Ltd had done investments in Lodha Group; Runwal Bliss - Mumbai based premium residential project being developed by the Runwal Group; Bhartiya City Developers Pvt. Ltd’s Bengaluru township project, Signature Global’s affordable housing project in Gurugram and projects of Chennai-based Prince Foundations Ltd.

Saurabh Gupta who joined KKR in 2014 was a principal with SUN-AREA Property Partners, involved in acquisitions and asset management for its $500 mm India dedicated foreign capital fund. It is not sure about the future plans of Gupta.

Last 12 months have seen a large number of senior level exits from real estate funds - global and domestic.

“With introduction of RERA, Real estate will see much needed accountability, transparency and institutionalisation which was missing all this while and as a result, there will be gradual consolidation in the RE space with large players having to professionalize their set-ups and small players finding it difficult to sustain,” said Anshul Lodha, director at recruitment agency Michael Page India.

This creates an opportunity for large institutional investors (who have traditionally stayed away) to deploy more capital in real estate in india as well as RE professionals to start their own ventures given their credibility, ability to attract large investors and be compliant, Lodha added.

In February, real-estate veteran Sanjay Dutt, chief executive of India operations & private funds at Singapore-based real estate developer Ascendas-Singbridge has been named as managing director of Tata Group’s property development arm Tata Housing Development Company as its managing director and chief executive.

Chanakya Chakravarti, former managing director, real estate acquisitions, JP Morgan Asset Management, had quit and joined global real estate investor Ivanhoé Cambridge as Managing Director, India, Growth Markets, in November.

In January this year, Shobhit Agarwal, former managing director-capital markets at international property consultancy -JLL, had quit JLL India and set up his own property-focused invest banking firm ANB Capital Advisors.

In October last year, Sandeep Agarwal, executive director at Kotak Realty Fund had quit and joined at Centrum Financial Services Ltd as head - Real Estate Finance.

Top level exits in real estate funds:

Sanjay Dutt - Ascendas-Singbridge - Tata Housing Development Company

Chanakya Chakravarti - JP Morgan Asset Management- Ivanhoé Cambridge

Shobhit Agarwal - JLL India -ANB Capital Advisors

Sandeep Agarwal - Kotak Realty Fund - Centrum Financial Services Ltd