Piramal Enterprises Ltd said its board has allowed unit Piramal Finance Ltd to start retail housing finance business as part of its diversification strategy.
Piramal Finance will apply to the National Housing Bank, the sector regulator, to set up a housing finance company as a subsidiary, the parent company said in a statement on Thursday.
Piramal Finance already has a presence in wholesale finance, catering to the residential and commercial real estate, infrastructure and other sectors. It has a loan book of Rs 19,170 crore.
In addition, the group manages external funds including in alliances with leading global investors. It has total assets under management of Rs 7,315 crore.
“Having successfully scaled up our presence in wholesale finance through Piramal Finance, we believe that we have established a blueprint for growth within the real estate asset class,†Piramal Enterprises chairman Ajay Piramal said in the statement. “We, therefore, feel that the timing is opportune for us to make a foray into retail housing finance.â€
Khushru Jijina, managing director at Piramal Finance, said the company's investments in about 300 projects with 100 developers will enable the home finance unit to hit the ground running.
In the real estate sector, Piramal Finance invests through Piramal Fund Management Pvt Ltd. It recently opened its doors for commercial assets and has an ambitious target of deploying Rs 5,000 crore across key markets like Mumbai and Bengaluru.
In November last year, it also expanded its real estate portfolio to offer Flexi Lease Rental Discounting loans for completed commercial assets that include office and retail space. The company had said that it had identified an initial pipeline of transactions worth Rs 1,500 crore and intended to scale it up to a book size of Rs 10,000 crore in 2017-18.
Like this report? Sign up for our daily newsletter to get our top reports.