Walton Street BlackSoil fund invests Rs 75 cr in Shapoorji Pallonji’s JV

By Nikhil Patwardhan

  • 07 Apr 2022
Credit: Thinkstock

Walton Street BlackSoil Real Estate Debt Fund II (WSBREDF II) on Thursday said that it will invest Rs 75 crore ($10 million) in Vakratunda Buildcon Pvt Ltd (VBPL), a joint venture (JV) between Shapoorji Pallonji Group and Vakratunda Group.

VBPL will be using the funds for its ‘BKC 28’ project located in Mumbai’s Bandra East.

Walton Street BlackSoil said that the project, which consists of nearly 150 apartments, has shown rapid construction progress and claimed that VBPL has achieved sales with steady receivables.

The BKC 28 project is in close proximity to Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) and other government offices, schools, hospitals and railway stations, with connectivity to South Mumbai and western and eastern express highways.  

“The JV partners complement each other with unique skillsets, key to bringing together a marquee development in an established Mumbai micro-market,” said Vinit Prabhugaonkar, on behalf of WSBREDF II.  

“This development caters to the housing demand from executives working at BKC and offers a true value proposition at a very attractive pricing,” Prabhugaonkar added.  

Shapoorji Pallonji Group is one of the oldest conglomerates in the country and claims to have a real estate arm with a development pipeline of over 80 million square feet.

The group also claims to feature in one of the top five real estate developers in India by sales.

Meanwhile, Vakratunda Group, established in 1973, has been active in residential and commercial real estate developments in Mumbai, Thane, Badlapur and MMR (Mumbai Metropolitan Region) in partnership with developers like Godrej Properties.

“With the pandemic showing signs of slowdown, we are witnessing an increased pent-up demand for real estate in Mumbai especially amongst young, upwardly mobile working professionals. Our partnership with Walton Street BlackSoil will help us capitalize on this growing trend and make our vision to offer premium housing solutions to aspirational Indians a reality,” said Nirav Dalal, Business Head at Shapoorji Pallonji Real Estate.

For WSBREDF II, VBPL’s investment adds to its portfolio of five investments till date. The fund, launched in June last year, has a target corpus of Rs 500 crore and an additional green shoe option of up to Rs 250 crore.

The fund claimed to have invested 45% of its total corpus across the five investments. It also claimed to have received investor commitments worth 90% of its target corpus. WSBREDF II said that it intends to make a few more investments in tier-1 cities like Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Pune, Mumbai and NCR region in the near future.