WSB Real Estate Partners (formerly Walton Street BlackSoil) has raised its target fund size of Rs 500 crore, stepping into the green shoe option for its latest fund Walton Street BlackSoil Real Estate Debt Fund II (WSBREDF II), the company said in a statement.
“This fund has a target size of Rs 500 crore and we have dipped into the additional green shoe of Rs 250 crore, which will be raised in the next 2-3 months. So far, we have deployed around 40% of the capital across five transactions in housing projects across --Bengaluru, MMR, Hyderabad, Pune and Chennai. We hope to fully deploy the fund by the end of March next year,” said Kaushik Desai, managing partner of WSB Real Estate Partners.
The funds have been raised from multiple family offices and domestic and offshore high networth individuals (HNIs).
The fund will focus on using structured debt to invest in residential real estate projects serving the mid-income or affordable housing segment across select tier I cities and will also look to partner with developers with a good track of execution and delivery, WSB said in the statement.
“Overall, in the last five to six quarters, the real estate space is doing very well. We are focused on mid-income residential real estate and the five transactions are all across this domain. WSB Real Estate Partners had closed ten transactions through its first fund, with six fully exited and three partial exits with late-teen returns (internal rate of returns). It has returned 100% of the capital to the investors in terms of principal plus interest,” said Desai.
Our sweet spot is investing in deals in the range of Rs 50-100 crore, he added.
The group has also announced its rebranding from Walton Street India to WSB Real Estate Partners.
“With a healthy deal flow pipeline and promising underlying RE fundamentals, we are optimistic of fully deploying the capital in the next 2-3 quarters,” Desai added.
“The team’s understanding of Indian real estate and hands-on solution-oriented approach distinguishes them from others which is demonstrated by successful track record. Having successfully achieved our target fund size, we rebrand into a position that better captures the essence of where we are today and where we want to be in the future,” said Mohinder Pal Bansal, Co-Founder of BlackSoil Group.
In April VCCircle reported that Walton Street BlackSoil Real Estate Debt Fund II will invest Rs 75 crore ($10 million) in Vakratunda Buildcon Pvt Ltd (VBPL), a joint venture (JV) between Shapoorji Pallonji Group and Vakratunda Group.
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.