, the realty arm of Essar Group promoted by the Ruias, is looking to raise money via the private equity route by selling its stake in the Equinox Business Park project in Bandra Kurla Complex in Mumbai.
Equinox Realty said in a statement, “The flagship project of our company, Equinox Business Park, is now almost complete with the launch of the fourth and final office tower. We are exploring opportunities with PE players who can bring in strategic inputs and partner in our growth and expansion plans.”
A senior realty consultant privy to the development said, “Equinox is looking to sell its commercial office space but there has been no concrete discussions yet. The company has not decided yet how much stake it would want to sell and it is waiting for proposals to see how much it can raise from funds. They have been looking to raise money through private equity from mid-last year but nothing has happened yet.”
The realty arm of the telecom energy major is currently undertaking commercial, residential and township developments in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand.
An official close to the plans of the company said, “On completion of the fourth tower, the park will reach its full development size of approx.1.2 million sq. ft.”
The property in question was earlier called the Peninsula Techno Park, which was being developed by Ashok Piramal Group’s Peninsula Land, headed by Rajeev Piramal. Peninsula had sold off the property in 2007 to the Essar Group for close to Rs 1,100 crore. Peninsula had then clarified to the exchanges that there had been “an agreement for sale of two buildings located at the said complex having an aggregate area of 0.72 million sq. ft. for an aggregate consideration of Rs.1,065 crore to Essar Technology Park BKC Pvt Ltd.”
At present, Equinox Realty has a development of 14 million sq. ft. under construction. It has invested close to Rs 1,400 crore for its commercial office development and at present, has two office buildings in its portfolio, one each in Mumbai and Bangalore.
A lot of rental yield funds are mushrooming in the country with the likes of billionaire Ajay Piramal’s IndiaReit and Bangalore-based Azure Capital looking to raise specific funds for investment in ready commercial office portfolio (Read here). Private equity funding in realty projects was up at $1.3 billion during 2011 as against $1.1 billion during 2010, according to VCCEdge, the financial research platform of VCCircle.
