Shriram Properties, Prudentia in JV for leisure townships

Shriram Properties, part of the Chennai-based $4.2 billion Shriram Group, headquartered in Bangalore, has entered into a 50:50 joint venture with Prudentia Investments of Australia for leisure lifestyle townships in India.

Announcing this on Wednesday, M Murali, managing director of Shriram Properties, said that both Shriram Properties and Prudentia Investments will together bring in $100 million to enter new business initiatives of creating leisure lifestyle housing to expat IT/BPO employees.

"The joint venture, to be called 'Shriram Prudentia Investments', has begun the process of identifying land in Bangalore and Chennai to execute projects," he added.

Prudentia Investments is an Australian property development company with experience in developing and delivery of large scale property and infrastructure projects.

"Prudentia Investments has built projects valued around Australian $750 million ($556 million). Projects include lifestyle developments involving golf and marina housing estates, retail shopping industrial, residential and hotel projects," said Angus Reed, managing director, Prudentia Investments.

"For joint development with Shriram, we are bringing to table a strong ecological sustainable design solutions which have been time-tested in Australia," he added.

According to Murali, the joint venture will first explore south India by setting up two projects each in Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad before entering the north Indian cities.

"The company aims to acquire between 300 acres and 400 acres for each of such projects. It will also acquire land near the new international airport at Devanahalli in Bangalore and also near East Coast Road in Chennai," he added.

On the group's initiatives, Murali said that Shriram Properties has so far entered into similar joint ventures with Ceylinco, for setting up a township on the Old Madras Road in Bangalore. It has a similar tie up with Sun Apollo to develop Standard Motors' property in Chennai.

The company plans to create a realty fund and is waiting for a clear government policy to raise money to enter the tier II cities, said S Venkataraman, CEO, Shriram Propcare.

Shriram Properties in the last 10 years has built 4 million square feet and has under implementation about 14 million square feet, including 5.30 million square feet in Chennai.