Industry insiders often refer to Sanjay Chandra as a fighter, survivor and trendsetter. Now, in the middle of the 2G spectrum controversy, the managing director of the second-largest real estate developer, Unitech, and the chairman of its telecom venture, Unitech Wireless, hasn’t lost his cool and confidence, people close to him say.
This is not the first time that he is the middle of a crisis. A few years ago, when real estate was down in the dumps in the aftermath of the global economic slowdown, Unitech, too, went through a rough patch. But the company came out of it, thanks to the fighting spirit of Sanjay Chandra, ably supported by his father Ramesh Chandra (the founder and executive chairman of Unitech) and brother Ajay Chandra (managing director of the realty company).
Reacting quickly to the crisis, Sanjay worked closely with his family to come out with a concrete action plan. Accordingly, the group exited some non-core businesses by selling equity in many assets. Besides putting some hotel properties, including Marriott Courtyard in Gurgaon, on the block, Chandras also sold equity in Orissa Sponge Iron.
Qualified institutional placement (QIP), a capital-raising tool for a listed company, was yet another move that worked for Sanjay. Although Unitech’s ambitious plan to launch QIP in 2008 failed, as the market crashed, Sanjay did not give up. He is learnt to have told bankers to continuously update the QIP documents, so that he could strike when the time was right. And, he did. In 2009, despite being advised against launching a QIP, Sanjay took a chance, which paid off. He launched the QIP in April 2009 and raised $325 million to service part of the company’s debt. Unitech completed the QIP in a day, changing the market perception about QIPs. He was invited for drinks by many industry biggies that evening to celebrate the moment.
Even as everyone else wanted to follow in Unitech’s footsteps on QIP after that, very few succeeded. The market was flooded with QIPs, but the supply far exceeded the demand. In that market, Chandras launched yet another QIP, within a few months of the first, and raised $575 million. “He knows the pulse of the market, and has a risk-taking ability,” an old associate says. Add to that, his fine sense of finance.
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It is the combination of the same traits that guided Sanjay to get into affordable housing, quite a switch from the luxury segment that the Chandras were into until the slowdown hit realty business.
The telecom business of the group (Uninor), where Norwegian major Telenor has a majority stake, is also believed to have been triggered by Chandra’s instinct to diversify into an area with a great deal of potential. Unitech was already into related areas of telecom and power transmission towers, and it wanted to diversify. It was at that time that new telecom licences were being planned to be given.
Those in the know say that real estate companies, including Unitech, had to interact with the environment ministry for various clearances. And, foray of real estate companies into telecom was often linked to Raja’s tenure in the environment ministry. Before becoming the telecom minister in 2007, Raja was the environment minister.
Besides business, Sanjay Chandra spends time with his family. He is married to a fashion designer, Preeti, and has a son and a daughter. Although a family man, he has a large number of friends from the industry as well as from his school and college days. Not too much into golf and other high-profile sports often associated with young industrialists, Sanjay is more of a travel person. Sometimes, he even manages to pack in family holidays between business outings.
Mostly hands-on in business, the Boston University graduate also believes in carrying his own files and papers. “You will never see somebody else carrying the papers for him,” a former colleague says.
Though he is now in the eye of a storm, Sanjay is known for having made it big in a short span of time. If past is something to go by, the man behind thousands of homes would be able to brave this storm too.