Tata Housing marks global foray with Maldives

Tata Housing will mark its foreign debut with a Rs850-900 crore investment project in Maldives. Going forward, it also plans to tap other foreign markets like Sri Lanka and countries in the Saarc region, with a total investment plan of close to Rs1000 crore for land acquisition.

Tata Housing would be executing the Maldives project through Apex Realty, in which it holds around 65% stake. The remaining 35% is held by SG18 Developers, a joint developer in the project. Apex Realty has entered into an agreement with the Maldives Government for developing 350 residential apartments under public private partnership (PPP) model.

Under the arrangement, 80% of the apartments would be allotted to government-appointed buyers and the remaining 20%, around 72 apartments, would be available to Apex Realty for free sale.

In addition, the Maldives government will also provide commercial space of around 1.5 lakh square feet to be developed and sold or leased out for 50 years and an exclusive island to develop premium luxury villas. The total area of land — villas, apartments and commercial space — is close to 8,50,000 square feet.

The entire project is to be completed in three years in a phased manner. The first two phases would involve development of the apartments. Development of the villas project would be at the third stage.

For the villas project, planned on the island, the company is considering various models including the condo model. Under the model, the company could partner with a resort company and buyers could buy a villa, use it for a specific time during the year and could pool it in for the remaining part of the year for yields at around 5% to 7%. The company could also look at outright sale of these villas. The typical size of these planned villas is around 20,000 square feet.

“The total investment for the entire project is around ¤850 crore to Rs900 crore. The investment would be funded through a mix of internal accruals and debt, with 70% of it being debt-funded,” said Brotin Banerjee, MD and CEO, Tata Housing Development Co Ltd. For the current financial year, the Maldives project is expected to witness an investment of around Rs200-250 crore.

“Tata Housing plans to invest around Rs800-1000 crore in the current financial year towards land and property acquisitions,” Banerjee added. The expected total size of land or project acquisitions is around 20- 22 million square feet. The company currently has around 43 million square feet at various stages of development.

On the international front, the company is confident of finalising a few projects in Sri Lanka in the current fiscal — a couple of them in the capital city of Colombo and another in the hills or central highlands. All these international projects are being planned through separate special purpose vehicles formed for each country or project.