As many as 489 overseas investment transactions were carried out by various companies in March, as per the Reserve Bank data released Wednesday. Binani Industries invested a total of USD 323.34 million in its two wholly-owned subsidiaries based in Luxembourg and the US that are involved in financial, real estate and manufacturing services.

Mercator Lines, which is into agriculture and mining, through its joint venture-Mercator Offshore PTE- invested USD 150.15 million in Singapore during the month, it said. ABG Shipyard, through its wholly-owned subsidiary invested USD 80 million in Singapore.

HCL Technologies, India’s fourth largest software exporter, invested USD 60 million in Bermuda through its wholly owned subsidiary for providing financial, insurance and real estate solutions.
Likewise, Varun Shipping which is into transport, storage and communication business invested USD 60 million via its JV in Cyprus.

Hexaware Technologies invested USD 38.7 million through its wholly-owned subsidiary in Germany to provide financial, insurance, real estate solutions, it said. Tata Steel invested USD 35.5 million in Singapore through its wholly-owned unit, it said.

The Indian property market will see more investment from overseas this year as it still remains an attractive investment destination globally.

Of this, one-third would be from home buyers and the balance from investors. This is despite the fact that property prices in India are at an all-time high.

According to a recent National Housing Bank (NHB) survey, property prices in big Indian cities have increased by as much as 43 per cent to 166 per cent in the last four years.

NHB, wholly owned by the Reserve Bank of India, lends to home-mortgage companies. It also regulates and refinances social housing programmes. In its report, the bank said Chennai had seen the highest rise in prices at 166 per cent. Bhopal was second with a hike of 117 per cent and Mumbai was ranked third with an increase of 87 per cent.

What then brings overseas investment to Indian property, when prices are skyrocketing? The answer is simple: Despite the global turmoil because of the financial crisis, the Indian economy has remained robust, largely due to domestic-driven demand.

According to Jones Lang LaSalle, India’s strong economic growth, rapid urbanisation, growing middle-class population, demographic advantage and increased thrust on infrastructure has worked in its favour. Buying property is especially popular among Indians living abroad, who all seem to want a piece of the homeland. That is why Indian property shows are burgeoning around the globe.

Dubai-based Sumansa Exhibitions has been holding Indian property shows across five countries. And every year the number of developers taking part in the shows and the attendees has grown rapidly.

Sumansa Exhibitions’ chief executive officer Sunil Jaiswal says: “We have held shows in the UK, South Africa, Hong Kong, Dubai and Singapore. They have been very well received by both exhibitors and visitors alike.”

This year Sumansa will hold the Indian Property Show in Singapore on April 14 and 15. It will be held at the Suntec Exhibition Centre’s hall 401 and nearly 40 developers from across India will be part of the show.

More than 200 properties will be showcased during the two-day exhibition. Sumansa expects the number of footfalls at the event to be much larger than the 4,000 that turned up at its last year’s event.

“We plan to get into the real estate sector as we have land bank all over the country,” TCI Executive Director Vineet Agarwal said.

The company has 200 properties and would develop a number of them for residential and commercial projects.

“We have identified quite a few of our land properties for a foray into the sector. We have even set up a real estate division in our company for the business,” Agarwal said, but declined to give the investment figure for the foray.

Apart from the foray, TCI also plans to build a number of large warehouses across the country. It already has 7.5 million square feet of warehousing facility available which it plans to increase to 12.5 million square feet in the next 2-3 years.

It is also looking at opening offices in China, Thailand and in few European countries in the current financial year.

“We will open offices in the countries with which India has respectable volume of trade. We have recently set up our offices in Indonesia, Hong-Kong and Singapore. Now we are considering China, Thailand and Europe,” Agarwal said.

The company would also be investing Rs 200 crore in the next two years for purchase of trucks and ships.

From luxury to leisure, real estate companies such as Brigade group, Omaxe Ltd, Prestige group, Sobha Developers Ltd and Value Design build Pvt. Ltd, are entering into the leisure segment to build health resorts and spas in the backwaters of Kerala or amid the plantations of Chikmagalur in Karnataka.
Mr. Vineet Varma, chief executive officer, Brigade Hospitality Services Pvt. Ltd said, “The huge demand and scope of business in the leisure and hospitality segment are the major drivers for builders like us to get into this vertical,” Brigade Hospitality Services Pvt. Ltd is a fully owned subsidiary of Bangalore-based Brigade group. “Also, there’s only so much you can do in the residential and commercial sectors and new verticals like these complete our portfolio.”
Brigade group is coming up with a Rs100 crore premium health spa resort in the quiet coffee plantations of Chikmagalur, about a four-hour drive from Bangalore.
While the group will develop the property, it has teamed up with Singapore-based hospitality brands Banyan Tree and Angsana to operate it.
The leisure segment has attracted not just top-of-the-line developers but also new entrants.
Value Designbuild, a five-year-old real estate company based in Bangalore, is also set to develop a spa along with leisure homes.
Another Bangalore company, Sobha Developers Ltd, has a full-fledged Ayurvedic spa offering the traditional Kerala Ayurvedic massages, herbal baths in its first integrated township Sobha City in Thrissur in Kerala.
“Tier II or smaller cities offer a lot of variety for real estate development and we want to capitalize on the growing demands for our consumers. With the middle class getting richer, it is imperative to give them choices with projects like these,” says J.C. Sharma, executive director of Sobha Developers.

Indiabulls Properties Investment Trust could raise up to $388.3 million (US$286million) selling units in a real estate investment trust (REIT) in Singapore, according to reports. The trust, part of Indiabulls Real Estate Ltd., plans to sell 353 million units of Indiabulls Properties Investment Trust at between S$1 and S$1.10.

This will be the first such sale by an Indian real estate company.

Billionaire Lakshmi Mittal, the world’s fourth-richest man, has reportedly agreed to buy 91mn units. Mittal was among the initial investors in Indiabulls Financial Services Ltd., which last year spun off Indiabulls Real Estate as a separate company.

The projected yield for the trust is 4.66-5.12% based on forecast income for the year ending March 2009. Presentations to institutional investors start today, with pricing scheduled for next week.

Deutsche Bank and Merrill Lynch are handling the deal, which will see Indiabulls inject into the trust two projects with a total of 3.4 million square feet of space, according to the prospectus filed with the Monetary Authority of Singapore earlier this month.

The Mumbai properties due to be ready by August, are designed for IT and financial firms and retail outlets, and has residential components. The two assets are estimated by Knight Frank to be worth US$3.2 billion.

The Indiabulls REIT would be the first major test of investors’ appetite for new listing since the market crash in November. The last two REITs to list in Singapore, Lippo-Mapletree Indonesia Retail Trust and Saizen REIT, tumbled on their debuts in November and are still trading well below their IPO price.

Credit ratings agency Moody’s only last week issued a negative outlook for Singapore’s REITs over the next 12-18 months, citing weak market sentiment and tighter liquidity that have impaired their access to capital markets.

The poor market conditions sparked by the US subprime crisis and the ensuing global credit crunch had forced Indiabulls Real Estate, and fellow Indian developers Unitech and DLF, to postpone their planned Singapore REIT IPOs in March.

Meanwhile, DLF Assets owes money to DLF, a major chunk of which it planned to pay off via its proposed listing as a real estate investment trust in Singapore. But due to poor market sentiments and a global market slowdown, it had to put off its listing.
It was looking to raise $1 billion through the public issue. DLF Assets has however paid up the bulk of money it owes DLF for the last year but still owns nineteen hundred crore rupees. The fresh infusion of funds from Symphony Capital would enable DLF Assets to partly pay up the money it owes DLF.
Further, seeing DAPL’s inability to raise funds through an IPO, the parent company DLF has also reversed the sale of fifteen hundred crore rupees worth of office assets to the group company DLF Assets, thereby reporting a reduction of eight hundred crore rupees in the PBT for the quarter ended March ‘07. Had the sale not been reversed Q4 PBT could have been Rs thirty five hundred crore rupees versus the reported Rs 2,704 crore. The reversal of sale is on account of properties not qualifying as IT/ITes SEZs.. DAL will now hold only IT/ITeS properties and this action will benefit DAL.

The deal is expected to value the tier-II real estate firm at a little over $1 billion. This marks Citigroup’s back-to-back deals in the domestic real estate space in the last fortnight. Early last week, the global financial giant unveiled $160 million play in Delhi-based BPTP.

Golden Gate is primarily into residential market with about 20,000 units under development totaling 23 million sq ft across southern cities such as Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad. The company also has substantial land holdings extending into emerging centres like Mysore and Mangalore. Besides, Golden Gate is believed to be foraying into SEZ and mixed use development.

In January this year, Deutche Bank investment unit RREEF closed $70 million transaction picking up under 10% stake in the company. The private equity juggernaut is now increasingly open to investing in tier-II or even in start-up realty firms, as the sectoral transparency issues are clearing up to an extent.

Citi’s fresh investments are coming in when it was expected that the largest banking group in the US, reeling under $18 billion write-offs due to the subprime crisis, may go slow in ploughing more money into the realty sector in India. Several global banks have booked massive losses as the financial crisis that kicked in with the meltdown in the US housing market gained speed in the last two quarters.

However, more realty firms are now opening up to private equity as their fund raising plans in the capital markets have run into trouble. For instance, several firms, including the biggest domestic player DLF, have been eyeing REIT listing on the Singapore Exchange, but are forced to delay the plan in the wake of market turbulence.

This is the business trend to attract Indian investors toward real estate  abroad. Indians have high disposable incomes and travel on work across the world. Buying a house in a foreign country is no longer a dream.

Dubai, Malaysia and Singapore have been locations which have generated interest over the last two to three years as investment destinations and prices in all three markets have soared

“We have got remarks from market players. I would say that in the timetable, that will be later than the stock lending scheme and currency futures,” the stock market regulator’s chairman C. B. Bhave told an investment conference in Singapore via teleconference.
SEBI in December released draft guidelines on setting up REITs in India, which would pave the way for wider participation by retail investors in the country’s booming real estate sector.

Regulators are also mulling over the introduction of currency futures to help investors hedge foreign exchange risks, and a new system for the borrowing and lending of securities.

Currently, DAL is owned by DLF promoters and the listed firm has no equity stake in this firm. However, as per the plan, DLF will also invest $750 million or Rs 3,000 crore in the REIT. DAL had earlier planned to list the REIT, but now is going for a private placement.

DLF spokesperson declined to comment saying that the Singapore market regulation didn’t allow company to make any comment on the issue as its application for listing of REIT was still being scrutinized by the authorities.

DLF Assets originally planned to raise $2 billion through its REIT called DLF Office Trust. Given the downturn in the global financial markets, DAL has now put on hold its plan to list the REIT. In the meanwhile, it is going ahead with its fund-raising plan through the private-placement route. According to sources, DLF Office Trust will now be a private trust, raising money only through institutional investors. A private trust, unlike a public trust, is not listed and doesn’t have retail participation. DLF had originally planned to have 10% retail investors in its REIT.

Limitless- a Dubai World affiliate and a worldwide developer that has been very active in Asia of late with Singapore the hub for its projects across the region, will be amongst the companies participating at Cityscape Asia 2008. Its first international project in the region is Halong Star, a $220-million mixed-used development in Halong Bay near Hanoi, Vietnam.

S. A. Saeed, the CEO of Limitless, explains Southeast Asia as ”one of the most electrifying and energetic regions” providing infinite opportunities to display our core talents of master planning large-scale, balanced projects and waterfront development”.

The event’s Gold sponsor, London-listed Aseana Properties, will also be represented. The company spotlights on property development in Malaysia and Vietnam with roughly $250 million worth of assets under management.

Mr.Chia Boon Kuah, executive director, said “We are talking to partners who will complement our property development expertise. Big realty players who know the four markets don’t need a partner, but regional ones who have the land and are in the business may find partnering with us beneficial”.

But discussions are at a preliminary stage; Mr Kuah added and declined to name realtors who are in talks with them. The Singapore firm has developed a string of high-end residential and commercial properties, including the iconic Fullerton Hotel in Singapore.

It is also building Orchard Central as part of $1.6-billion makeover of Orchard Road, the city state’s throbbing shopping district. Elaborating, Mr Kuah said, “We are very interested in coming to India. Ideally, we would look at the hospitality segment and high-end service apartments. We would like to develop four star and five star hotels in India and operate them.

Market capitalization of the city-state’s real estate investment trust (REIT) market amounts to 21.6 billion dollars, second to Japan with a capitalization of 46 billion dollars.

“For some players, 2008 will represent a period of good opportunities for companies that are well capitalized and don’t rely on credit, “The Business Times quoted Peter Mitchell, the association’s chief executive officer, as saying.

Hong Kong ranks as the third-largest REIT market with capitalization of 8.5 billion dollars, followed by Taiwan at 1.7 billion dollars, Malaysia at 1.l6 billion dollars and South Korea at 0.6 billion dollars.

Mitchell described the REIT sectors in Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore as mature. The general downturn in the economy could see a return to fundamentals,” he told the newspaper.

Mitchell said projections of another 10 REITs being listed in Singapore this year seems a bit optimistic amid the US subprime crisis and global credit crunch, but there are still opportunities in Asia.

The city-state has the potential to become a major centre for the region, Mitchell said, mentioning upcoming listings of Indian, Japanese, Chinese and Indonesian REITs.
The Singapore chapter follows those set up in Hong Kong and Japan.

1. The Jupiter Mills Project
2. Elphinstone Mills Project

Total Investment on these two projects is £114 million. The company has declared its strategy that it will seek shareholder approval for the disposal of its interests in two of its three development projects in the extraordinary general meeting. The meeting will be held on 25 january,2008. The projected business deal will be planned as a sale of Dev’s entire 13 percent interest in each of the following project special purpose vehicles, or SPVs, Indiabulls Properties Private Ltd and Indiabulls Real Estate Co. Private Ltd. Dev’s interests in the SPVs will be sold to wholly owned subsidiaries of Indiabulls Properties Investment Trust, a Singapore-based investment trust with the principal objective of investing in office space in India.
The proposed transaction is currently expected to complete by March 1, 2008.

Indian real-estate sector is on boom. Stock-market values have risen. DLF shares have more than double in value. Its shares are giving it a market capitalization of about $49 billion on the Bombay Stock Exchange and India’s National Stock Exchange.

New office complexes with indoor “green” zones and condominiums with back-up power supplies, swimming pools and even private fire brigades are springing up. In most of the cases, the developments are sold before they get finished.

According to reliable industry wide data, says DLF and its rivals combined promised to build about 10 times what they have built so far. DLF plans to list a REIT valued at more than $2 billion in Singapore soon and will invest in the trust itself.

On the other hand, some industry analysts worry that even DLF faces risks from the size of its plans. They fear that DLF and other developers might not be able to deliver projects on time and on budget. Adding to these concerns is a tight market for skilled labor and rising raw-material costs. Mr. Rajiv Singh, DLF Vice Chairman acknowledges that DLF’s growth plans are a challenge, but in an interview he said “we are quite confident this will be done.” He says DLF’s national network of management teams and its relationships with contractors and consultants, in some cases affiliated concerns, can support the planned expansion. In early 2006, for example, DLF concluded a 50-50 joint venture with British construction group Laing O’Rourke PLC to undertake building projects in India and possibly elsewhere.