Real estate-focused private equity firm Red Fort Capital has invested Rs 200 crore (~$36 million) in a residential project of Bangalore-based public listed real estate player, Prestige Estates according to .
In January this year, Red Fort Capital had raised a fresh $500 million fund from international investors to invest in residential and commercial real estate in India. The transaction with Prestige Estates has been done at the land acquisition stage for a greenfield development, as per the report.
According to sources, the fund has exhausted nearly half of the new fund and is back on the road to raise another real estate fund of the same size. Red Fort Capital is one of the rare exceptions to have managed to raise money from overseas investors in the recent past, when others have come back empty handed.
The firm had earlier invested Rs 150 crore in a residential project of Gurgaon-based local developer 3C Company from this new fund.
With the final close of Red Fort India Real Estate Fund II, the firm has nearly $900 million under management, making it one of the largest independent private equity real estate investment specialists in India. According to VCCEdge, the financial research arm of VCCircle,
Red Fort India Real Estate Fund I raised $375 million in 2007.
Most of Red Fort Capital’s investments are in the National Capital Region (NCR) and in developers like Parsvnath, Ansal Properties & Infrastructure and 3C. It initially backed projects in cities like Bangalore (developers like Prestige), Chennai (KG Foundations) and Kolkata (Godrej Properties), but focused on the NCR for the past three years or more.
However, it has started to venture out and recently invested Rs 250 crore in a slum redevelopment project in Malad (Mumbai) by Omkar Realtors and Developers.