Home-grown real estate-focused private equity firm Milestone Capital Advisors Ltd has appointed Kuldip Chawlla as its managing partner –real estate investments commercial, according to a press release.
He will be responsible for driving fundraising and expanding the commercial real estate business of the company. Prior to his appointment at Milestone, he was with Red Fort Capital in a senior leadership role.
Red Fort has seen a number of top executive movements in the past one year fuelling rumours of a shake-up at the realty investment firm.
Chawlla comes with 27 years of experience across banking, private equity, infrastructure and real estate practices. His real estate development and investment experience of over 12 years spans the complete life cycle of fundraising, investment origination, transaction structuring, risk mitigation, asset management and exit consummation, across a pan India portfolio of development and core projects.
He has previously worked with Unitech Investors Pvt Ltd, IL&FS Investment Managers and ANZ Grindlays Bank.
Meanwhile, PE firm has also elevated Nitin Goel as managing partner – real estate (residential). Goel will continue to manage the development funds at Milestone Capital, it said in the statement.
“Having recently concluded India’s largest exit by a private equity real estate fund, Milestone is targeting new heights with our senior leadership team,†said Rubi Arya, executive vice chairman of Milestone Capital.
Recently, Milestone Real Estate Fund exited its investment in Vikhroli Corporate Park that owned 247 Park commercial complex in Mumbai. Both joint venture partners HCC and Milestone Capital sold assets to Blackstone Group for Rs 1,050 crore, the largest exit done by a PE fund in commercial property market in India.
VCCircle had first reported that Blackstone was the front-runner to acquire the property. Other media reports had suggested that the talks have fallen through.
Formed in 2007, Milestone Capital Advisors currently manages seven funds in real estate, including India’s first REIT like structures.
Having raised Rs 2,538 crore from a wide range of institutional and non-institutional investors in domestic and global markets, Milestone Capital has already returned around Rs 2,400 crore to investors by divesting stake in 25 projects.
The firm recently lost a key team member as executive director, Navin Kumar, quit the company after a stint of almost eight years.
This came at a time when Milestone is raising its first fund after the demise of its founder Ved Prakash Arya in a freak accident four years ago. The fund, which was launched in September last year, is yet to scoop up a substantial amount. It is chasing a corpus of Rs 500 crore for a domestic residential real estate fund.
A Milestone spokesperson had told VCCircle that it is looking for a chief investment officer, who will handle both fundraising and investment.