 "Lunch with BS: Abhishek Lodha")
After chasing him for about four months, Abhishek Lodha, managing director of Mumbai-based real estate firm Lodha Group, finally agrees to meet me for a Lunch with BS. On the agreed date, Lodha is already there at the Fenix, The Oberoi Mumbai, busy working on his laptop, arriving much before we (me and his communication consultant) reach the restaurant at 12 noon.
The restaurant has few guests, and the steward arrives at the table almost immediately.
Lodha, 36 and the face of the group, excuses himself for a minute and finishes his work. Meanwhile, we place our order. A sparse eater, Lodha asks for an asparagus cappuccino soup and a Greek salad with as little olive oil as possible. I settle for a sweet lemon juice and seafood risotto. The consultant asks for a broccoli and kale soup. The steward returns apologising profusely: the asparagus cappuccino soup is not available. Lodha switches to a tomato basil soup without much fuss.
I kick off the conversation asking him how he manages to run a group that is simultaneously developing projects across London, Mumbai, Pune and Hyderabad. Lodha likes the question. He says what helps him is his great sense of responsibility towards their family, the buyers and the group's employees. He says about 4,000 people currently work with the company and another 25,000 work at the various under-construction project sites. His firm, he claims, is the largest employer in Mumbai in its sector. It has a client roster of about 7,000.
Impressive, but what if he had not inherited the business from his father Mangal Prabhat Lodha, a Bharatiya Janata Party legislator from Mumbai, I ask. He sidesteps the question and says he could not have done all this without his father’s support. Thanks to his father’s experience and knowledge that he could build upon what the senior Lodha had already laid the foundation for. He disagrees with my suggestion that his father's position, of a being legislator from the ruling party, helped the company in a big way.
So how does he feel about the fact that the Lodha Group has beaten DLF in terms of total sales in the last financial year? He corrects me: the group has consistently beaten DLF for the last three years; he pauses for a moment and adds that DLF and the Lodha Group are two entirely different entities. While the Lodha Group is a young company and focuses on residential projects, DLF is a much older company and also a big developer of office projects. “I have high regard for them,” he says. The Lodha Group bought the Mumbai Textile Mill land in the Worli area of Mumbai from DLF for Rs 2,727 crore in 2012. “I don’t think this industry is about head on head rivalry,” he says and remembers the 1978 Hindi movie Trishul, in which the hero, Amitabh Bachchan, sets up a construction firm just to take revenge on his father, played by Sanjeev Kumar.
“It is not that sort of an environment. We are not in competition with anybody,” he reiterates, adding that Mumbai is witnessing a huge change in its real estate market, and that about 10-15 credible developers have emerged from the 2,000-odd developers operative even until a few years ago.
My juice arrives; I take a sip and ask him about the recent comments by rating agencies that have referred to his company missing revenue and collection targets. He interrupts me; on the contrary, he says, his company’s collections are up 25 per cent this year and the business produces operating cashflows of Rs 150 crore every month. What about the group's plans of an initial public issue? Lodha says as the largest unlisted developer, an IPO is under consideration, but it is too early to talk about the size and the timing of the issue.
I direct the conversation to the recent separation between the Lodha brothers, under which Abhishek got the group’s real estate business and his younger brother Abhinandan got to set up the financial services company of the group. Lodha chooses to correct me again: separation is the wrong word here, he says. “As in other business families, like, for instance, the Bajajs, there is just a division of the focus of management to avoid future clashes. Under the guidance of our family and our well wishers we have done it in an amicable manner,” he insists.
The main course arrives. My risotto tastes like standard five-star fare but Lodha seems happy with his salad.
Then I ask him something many real estate developers are accused of these days--project delays and attendant risks. Lodha keeps his cool and suggests I spend a day and a half with him to understand the status of the various projects underway--how many projects the group has completed and handed over and so on. “In the last three years, we have delivered 17,000 homes in 20 different locations. Yes, there have been delays, on an average of about 12 months. But if you compare us with the others, last year we delivered 5,400 units, none of the top ten developers have delivered that many in Mumbai,” he says.
But of course, the group needs to focus more on deliveries than on acquiring new land parcels, he agrees. The group bought land parcels worth Rs 12,000 crore over the last couple of years, becoming the biggest land buyer in the country in the process.
With so much on his plate, does he get time to pursue a hobby? Or is he really a workaholic as he is perceived to be?
He says he loves his work but he also loves to watch cricket matches, catch a movie, hit the gym and spend time with his three young kids. Once in a while he also likes to analyse the impact of political decisions on the common man. “When you spend time with your kids, you don't realise how time flies. It is the same when I am working because I really love what I do,” he says helpfully.
We are approaching the end of the lunch and Lodha prods me to have dessert. I order a vanilla ice cream and apple pudding. As we dig into our dessert, Lodha's communication consultant orders a double expresso “really hot”.
Before you know it, Lodha has rushed off to his next meeting.
