Brick Eagle raises Rs 100 Crore for its Affordable Housing Fund
Brick Eagle Capital Advisory has raised Rs. 100 crore from Bennett Property Holdings and Axis Bank as anchor commitment for its Alternative Investment Fund out of its targeted corpus of Rs 500 crore. Bennett Property Holdings and Axis Bank both have committed Rs. 50 crore each for the fund. Prior to this, Brick Eagle Capital Advisory has raised Rs 400 crore for project finance, which has been deployed across nine cities and eight developers. The Brick Eagle India Affordable Housing Fund is a Category II AIF registered with SEBI aimed at catalysing 50,000 homes for low income families, while targeting healthy returns for its investors. Amid increasing investor interest for Affordable Housing, Kirti Timmanagoudar, Managing Partner of Brick Eagle Capital Advisory said “Our fund has been created with Local Developer requirements in mind and will make several small investments at early stages. We invest in Developers that target end customers as home buyers and not investors. Hence the sales velocity, business profitability and ultimately IRRs are not dependent on economic cycles”. The company informed that to achieve ‘Housing for All’, India needs to build $200 billion worth of affordable homes each year. Even by conservative estimates, this requires $30-40 billion of early stage project finance annually. Recent policy initiatives from the government have been a big boost to affordable housing sector. Policy push includes 'Infrastructure' status for the sector, tax holidays for Developers and subsidies of up to Rs.2.7 lakhs for first time home buyers. Speaking about the affordable housing scheme, Joanna DeSouza, President – Bennett Property Holdings (BPHCL) said “We believe that Affordable Housing is a huge opportunity as India moves forward with new themes like Housing for All and Make in India. The segment will take some time to reach a level of maturity and competitiveness with just a few organised service providers.”
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