One of the major Indian private equity firms, ICICI Venture, raised a fund of $ 700 million last year through real estate funds and other similar funds.
One of the major Private Equity firms of India ICICI Venture raised nearly $ 700 million informs of real estate funds and other similar funds. This is the second real estate fund of the Private Equity major.
The first fund was successfully invested into two projects in the National Capital Region and Mumbai. The NCR project is a group -housing project and the Mumbai project is a top- end luxury project.
Their project in the NCR is being developed by Advance India Projects Ltd while Ahuja Builders develop the second project of ICICI in Mumbai. The private equity firm has invested Rs.100 Cr in each of the projects.
ICICI has plans to invest more in all major cities of India such as Chennai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Kolkata and Pune, besides their projects in Mumbai and NCR.
ICICI had raised $ 550 million in the form of India Advantage Fund Real Estate Series 1, their first real estate fund. This fund was invested into thirteen projects.
2012 witnessed a steady growth in the real estate fund as a whole. Nearly Rs.5000 Cr ($1 billion) was raised last year through fourteen funds. The amount and the number of funds are greater than that of the previous years.
In the year 2011 there were only nine funds and the only $ 900 million was raised. The performance in the year 2011 was better than 2010 in which only $200 million was raised through four funds. This steady improvement in the number and amount of real estate funds shows that the year 2012 was a better year for raising real estate funds.
CEO of ICICI Venture Funds Mr. Vishakha Mulye, however, did not disclose the exact details of the fund. He said that the firm is happy about the outcome. According to him it was a tougher task to raise such a fund as the Indian economy remained sluggish.
