Varde Partners has invested Rs 400 crore in Chennai-based real estate developer Casagrand Builder for purchase of land in Chennai for development, two people aware of the deal said.
“The money was invested against a portfolio of real estate projects and the builder has already drawn down Rs 200 crore,” one of them said.
The builder is in talks to buy a 45-acre land parcel at Kelambakkam Road, Chennai.
“The land belonged to a Dutch firm and has been sold for over Rs 3 crore per acre,” said the person quoted above.
The deal comes on the back of a recent Rs 440 crore investment made by Varde Partners in an Omaxe Group project in Delhi-NCR.
The AIF has also made investments in two commercial projects of Phoenix Group in Hyderabad, and acquired a commercial building from Lodha Group in 2020 for around $1 billion.
Casagrand is looking to develop a mid-income multi-storey apartment project on the Kelambakkam road, priced upwards of Rs 4,000 per sq ft.
It currently operates in the middle-income residential category, priced upwards of Rs 35 lakh and up to Rs 1.5 crore, in Chennai.
CBRE, the transaction advisor, Casagrand and Varde Partners could not be reached for comments.
Last month, the Chennai-based builder had bought 20 acres of land in Perambur, Chennai from PVP Venture.
“It had purchased eight acres outright while the remaining land is under JDA (joint development agreement),” a person in the know said. “Casagrand is looking to buy more land in the south to expand its residential portfolio.”
Recently, the builder had received funding of Rs 1,200 crore from international investors including Apollo Global and KKR.
Casagrand will add 25 million square feet of residential property by 2024 and 5 million square feet of office projects. It aims to achieve a sales target of Rs 3,750 crore this fiscal, up from Rs 2,300 crore in 2021-22.
With improved consumer sentiment, top builders in the country have been seeing a continuous rise in homebuyer inquiries and conversions in recent months.
Knight Frank India in its latest report, India Real Estate: H1 2022 (January – June 2022) cited that the Chennai residential market registered a 21% Year on Year (YoY) growth in sales in H1 2022. The city recorded sales of 6,951 housing units in H1 2022 compared to 5,751 housing units sold in H1 2021. The new home launches also increased by 40% YoY from 5,424 housing units in H1 2021 to 7,570 housing units in H1 2022.
