Piramal Finance plans to invest $2 bn in affordable and mid-income housing sector

Piramal Finance Limited (PFL), a subsidiary of Piramal Enterprises Limited, has set up a dedicated team to invest in affordable and mid-income residential projects across major metros in India. It has identified an initial pipeline of Rs. 3000 cr with transactions across the major metros under active consideration. Piramal intends to scale it up and invest around $2 billion in such projects by 2020. The company will offer both pure and preferred equity capital to top developers who are looking to buy or develop land and need early-stage growth capital. It may also pursue an opportunistic acquisition of land on its own and invite developers to participate on a joint development basis. Khushru Jijina, Managing Director, Piramal Finance Limited and Piramal Housing Finance Limited, said “We now have a highly experienced team focused exclusively on scaling our presence within this segment and intend to scale up to US$2bn by 2020.” For affordable housing projects, through its proprietary wholesale loan book, Piramal Finance will sanction milestone-linked construction finance so that the developer is able to achieve financial closure for the project at the very outset. “While many players in the market are focused on providing equity or debt capital towards affordable and mid income housing, we believe that our ability to provide a comprehensive end-to-end solution – including both early stage equity as well as construction linked debt – is truly unparalleled as it helps the developer achieve financial closure for the project on Day Zero. Our ability to further drive sales through Brickex and fund those sales through customized home loan products specifically tailored towards salaried as well as self-employed end users acts as unique competitive advantage,” Jijina added.